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REVIEW – Spring is springing and that means one thing in my neighborhood: grilling season is upon us! That means it’s time to bust out some new gadgets. I know there are chefs out there that can tell if meat is done by poking it with a spatula. I’m not that chef. I need a thermometer, and I’m still using the one my neighbor gave me twenty three years ago when I moved in. Time for an upgrade with the Inkbird Wifi and Bluetooth meat thermometer.
⬇︎ Jump to summary (pros/cons)
Price: $139.99
Where to buy: Amazon or Inkbird
What is it?
the Inkbird Wifi and Bluetooth meat thermometer is a base station and four temperature probes that work along with an app to monitor your cooking.
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What’s included?
Base unit/probe charger with monitor
Four temperature probes
USB-C cable
Support literature (instruction booklet, quickstart guide)
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Tech specs
Model: INT-14-BW
Base Dimension: 6.2 x 6 x 1.4 inches / 159 x 153 x 37 mm
Screen: LCD with backlight
Probe materials: Stainless Steel Probe + Zirconia Ceramic Handle
Bluetooth: BLE 5.4/ range: 91m
Wifi: 2.4 GHz/range: 100m of router
Probe: Diswasher safe/IP67
Temperature range: Food: 14212℉ / -10100℃ Ambient: 32572℉ / 0300℃
Accuracy: ±1.8℉ / ±1℃ reponse time: 1 second
Temp calibration: ±12℉ / ±7℃
Probe battery life: 25 hours
Probe charge time: 25 minutes
Base battery: Built-in 3500mAh lithium battery
Base charge time: 3.5 hours
Data storage: 30 minutes for temperature data
Design and features
The Inkbird thermometer is pretty neat because it will work via Bluetooth with your phone or via WiFi with the base to give you up-to-the-second temperature readings. It comes with four probes, so if you’re doing a turkey or something large, you can put them all to work to see how that breast is cooking compared to, say, the thigh. Or, if you’re cooking a bunch of different things, you can spread them out. My favorite feature, though, is the fact that these are dishwasher safe. I’m such a lazy cook that pretty much everything winds up in there one way or another.
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Performance
Inkbird Wifi and Bluetooth meat thermometers came all charged up so my only challenge was pairing them to my phone and then logging them in to the Wifi. Neither task was very difficult. For my evaluation of them, I started with a pork roast. The Inkbird app is very helpful and user friendly. It shows all four probes on the screen, and then you can specify what food each probe is monitoring. Depending on the meat, all you have to do is specify how well done you want it and the target temperature is shown on the app. You can set alarms to go off at any point in the journey to that target temperature. So for my pork, I said I wanted it done medium rare and then set an alarm to go off when it reached 60 degrees C. Each probe has a sensor that measures the ambient temperature and the temperature of the food. I used two probes and the meat came out great!
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At the same time as I cooked the roast, I also threw some leftover uncooked pork ribs that I had from another dinner earlier in the week. The challenge of ribs is that there isn’t a lot of meat between the bones, and you need to get the Inkbird probe in such a way that it isn’t too close to the bone or it could throw off the reading. These thermometers are not as narrow as some of my other non-Bluetooth thermometers, either, so it’s just more challenging. You must also stick the probe in almost all the way to the handle, which makes cooking thinner meats like ribs or smaller cuts and steaks more of a placement challenge. I decided to use two probes for this as well, and my results were not quite as good. There were still some rather cold looking areas when we carved the ribs up. If I didn’t have to shove these probes in so far or if they were narrower, perhaps I would have had an easier time. Hard to say, though, because ribs can be tricky at the best of times, especially when you pull them right out of the meat drawer and throw them in the oven like I did. (Did I mention I’m a lazy cook?)
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These had some cold spots.
Later I cooked a tri tip roast with the Inkbird thermometer. (If you aren’t familiar with tri tip, it’s a West Coast cut, and it’s delightful!) Similarly, I had to stick them in so they poked out the ends, just like I did with the pork roast because the meat wasn’t thick enough to go through perpendicularly. I do wish these were shorter for that reason. I understand why they have to be long for some tasks like cooking a turkey, but if they came with two long and two shorter probes, that might be a more versatile, easy-to-use set. The meat came out great, though!
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Cleaning the Inkbird thermometers, as you might imagine, was no problem. I tossed them in the dishwasher with the cutlery and they came out great. Once done, you can pop them in the base unit where they will charge up for your next cooking adventure. I haven’t had to charge anything yet, but the probes only need a 25 minute charge from empty and they are good for 25 hours of cook time so it will be a while until I need to do that.
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Final thoughts
I really appreciate this set with the base that stores the probes since I lost a probe for another brand’s thermometer that didn’t have a designated storage spot. Probes can get lost easily in your drawers, but not this set! I’ll have years of service out of these!
What I like about the Inkbird Wifi and Bluetooth meat thermometer
Great app
Designated storage/charger
Dishwasher safe!
What needs to be improved?
Could be more useful if you had several different length probes.
Price: $139.99
Where to buy: Amazon or Inkbird
Source: The sample of this product was provided for free by Inkbird. Inkbird did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
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