a guage. On the bbq lid. No, i can't check it while i sit inside, this is true, there is, however a very good argument that says, maybe i shouldn't actually be inside while the bbq is on though.
I still probably wouldn't use an IoT one, though.
Fire, knives and an apron with a pithy slogan - c'mon, how hard can it be?
Anyhow, folks who are serious about preparing smoked brisket, ribs, etc., are very particular about the temperature of both the air/smoke and the food. Two thermometers and maybe a computer-controlled fan or damper are not far outside the norm.
Haha, gadget as in IoT crap, maybe, but we're for-sure the market for: aeropress, sous-vide devices (yes some do them DIY but...), dedicated pizza ovens, and so on. You got a gadget to prepare food or drinks that already have other ways to prepare them, HN's not a crazy place to market it. Bonus if it's "sciency" or can be described as more "authentic".
But of course we're not like the stupid plebs falling for those silly devices we don't like.
(mind, I'm far from immune to this, so I'm not just casting stones at others—oh I am getting one of those pizza ovens at some point. That's happening.)
Jokes aside, cooking meat properly should almost always have a leave in thermometer for anything that isn't being seared.
It's ok to not know something about a topic and not disingenuously comment about it.
Sure, you could go with a standard soil composition and add water on a schedule, then harvest when it feels best.
Or, you think of it as a system with inputs and outputs. If you can observe the system and manipulate the variables (soil composition analysis, moisture measurements, temperature control and sunlight optimization, etc) accordingly, then your yield can improve dramatically.
Any nursery sells a multitude of tools to measure and manipulate those variables, and farms are a whole other beast of systems design.
It's much the same with cooking meat. Control the variables, improve the result.
I understand that if the thermometer is on th lid and not actually measuring the meat it's crap, but if it's measuring the same way as the IOT version, then the readout is fine on the lid.
I use an IoT thermometer so that I can monitor smoking progress over 13 or so hours and still do things like go to the hardware store.
Personally, I wouldn't use an app for this and instead just use a remote sensor and dedicated monitor, but I don't fault anyone for using an app.
But even if it were grill temp the gauge on the BBQ lid is more of a guide than an actual temperature. They are highly inaccurate, more like "cold, warm, hot" than "400 degrees".
For most stuff just dialing in the temp comparatively is fine, so the grill gauge works. You know you want to grill your steak when the thing reads 600 degrees, and your chicken at 400. But those temps are certainly not remotely accurate.
For some other things (e.g. BBQ/smokers/etc.) getting exact temps correct is key. In those cases you'll require something much more accurate than the grill gauge even just to measure grill temp. Having something wireless is pretty handy in this case, so you can watch a movie in the basement and check on your meat temps without walking upstairs every 15 minutes.
This whole attitude to cooking is also weird. Cooking is in large part experimenting, seeing what works and what doesn't, learning and iterating. Sometimes the results will be bad, often they'll be sub-optimal but the variance is part of what makes it and we lose something by trying to turn it into an exact science. If you want something precisely timed and always the same I suggest McDonalds.
Actually, if you want something precisely timed and always the same I suggest a Michelin-starred restaurant.
If you've ever eaten at McDonald's you'd know the quality control, well, leaves a lot to be desired.
Your comment tells me you don't really know anything about cooking at all.
This is an awesome feature for a smoker, which needs fairly consistent temperature for like 10-14hrs.