The Bird Feeder With a Camera That Puts a Name to Every Visitor
A solar powered feeder that snaps portraits of every bird and tells you who just landed.
The Wireless Thermometer That Quietly Ends Overcooked Dinners
A wire free probe tells your phone exactly when the chicken is done, no guessing, no cutting it open.
You know the ritual. Cut into the chicken to check it, watch the juices run out, cook it five more minutes to be safe, and serve something with the texture of a baseball glove. Overcooking is not a skill problem. It is an information problem: you cannot see inside the meat.
The MEATER Plus can, and it will text your phone about it.
What It Is
The MEATER Plus is a completely wireless meat thermometer, typically about $80 on Amazon. It is a slim metal probe, no cables, no box of wires dangling out of your oven door. You push it into the roast, close the lid, and open the app. Two sensors inside track the internal temperature of the meat and the ambient temperature around it at once, while a repeater in the charging dock stretches the Bluetooth signal up to 165 feet. A five minute charge in that dock powers about two hours of cooking.
Why People Love It
It ends the guessing. Pick what you are cooking in the app, say chicken breast or medium rare steak, and the guided cook system watches the climb, alerts you at every stage, and estimates the exact finish time. Reviewers say over and over that it takes the guesswork out, which is the entire war with roasts, thick chops, and holiday turkeys.
You get your evening back. Because there are no wires and the signal reaches across the house, you are not standing sentry at the grill. Watch the game, help with homework, hold a conversation. The phone buzzes when the meat needs you. That freedom is the difference between cooking dinner and being held hostage by it.
It even manages the rest. The app tells you to pull the meat slightly early, then tracks the temperature as it coasts up while resting, telling you the moment it is truly ready to slice. That resting guidance is the step most home cooks skip, and reviewers single it out as the reason their steaks suddenly come out like a steakhouse’s.
Watch It Work
Push the probe into a thick chicken breast until the safety line disappears. Set it in the oven, walk to the couch, and watch the app draw the temperature curve in real time. A notification lands: 10 minutes remaining. Another: remove from heat. The last one: rest complete, serve.
Before: poke it, slice it open, squint at the juices, cook it longer out of fear, apologize at the table.
After: you cut into a chicken breast that is safe, juicy, and finished at the exact minute your phone predicted.
How to Get the Most Out of It
Setup is one evening of low stakes practice. Charge the probe in its dock, which runs on a single AAA battery, pair the app, and cook something forgiving like chicken thighs before you trust it with a holiday bird. Then adopt the habits experienced owners repeat:
- Treat the dock as a signal bridge, not a box. The charger is also the Bluetooth repeater, so park it at the kitchen window or on the counter nearest the grill. Most of the range complaints in reviews trace back to a dock left in a drawer three rooms away.
- Bury the probe properly. Insert past the safety line into the thickest part, angled away from bone. Shallow placement reads the outside of the meat and lies to you.
- Dock it while you prep. Five minutes of charging buys about two hours of cooking, so the probe that charges during your seasoning routine never dies mid brisket.
- Use the ambient reading like a pit thermometer. The second sensor tracks the air around the meat, which is how owners catch a grill running 75 degrees hotter than the dial claims or an oven that lies about preheating.
- Obey the rest countdown. Pulling early and slicing only at the rest complete alert is the single habit reviewers say upgraded their steaks most. The probe keeps working after the meat leaves the heat, so let it finish the job.
How It Stacks Up
Wireless probes went from one brand to a crowded field fast, so here is the honest map.
| Product | Price | The difference |
|---|---|---|
| MEATER Plus | about $80 | The original wireless probe with the most polished guided cook app |
| ThermoPro TempSpike | about $46 | The budget wireless probe, simpler app, 500 foot claimed range |
| Chef iQ Sense | about $70 | Uses WiFi through your home network for effectively unlimited range |
| ThermoPro TP19H instant read | about $15 | Manual spot checks in seconds, but no monitoring at all |
The ThermoPro TempSpike, about $46 with 4.1 stars across 11,000 ratings, delivers the core wire free experience for a lot less, with an app that is functional rather than polished. The Chef iQ Sense, about $70 with 4.3 stars, is the newer challenger whose WiFi connection sidesteps Bluetooth range problems entirely, a real answer to the MEATER’s most common complaint, though with a shorter track record. And the humble instant read thermometer, like the $15 ThermoPro with 4.7 stars across more than 55,000 ratings, remains the accuracy king for quick checks. It just requires you to be standing at the grill, poking, every time you want an answer.
Pick the TempSpike to try wireless cooking on a budget. Pick the Chef iQ if your grill sits far from the house behind thick walls. Keep a $15 instant read in the drawer regardless, every kitchen should own one. Pick the MEATER Plus if you want the most refined version of the leave it alone experience, with the guided cooks and rest tracking that make the results feel automatic.
How We Got Here
For decades the only way to monitor a roast without opening the door was a wired probe thermometer, accurate, cheap, and permanently tangled, with a cable pinched in the oven door and a receiver box cluttering the counter. Then a small UK company called Apption Labs built the MEATER, the world’s first truly wireless leave in meat thermometer, cramming two sensors, a battery, and a radio into one sealed probe.
The idea proved big enough that grill giant Traeger bought Apption Labs in 2021 in a deal reported at $100 million by outlets like The Spoon and Engadget. Rivals piled in, ThermoPro from the budget side, Chef iQ from the smart kitchen side, and prices fell across the board. The MEATER Plus, with its dock repeater stretching the original’s short range to 165 feet, is the version of the pioneer that hit the mainstream price sweet spot, which is how a premium probe ends up with 48,000 ratings.
What Buyers Keep Saying
The MEATER Plus holds 4.3 stars across more than 48,000 Amazon ratings, an enormous review base for a premium kitchen tool. The praise clusters around accuracy and outcomes: reliable readings, guided cooks that work, and meat that stops being overdone. One reviewer put it simply: “Perfect meat every time!”
Three cooks who said it best:
“This is the best thermometer I ever had, works in the oven as well as on the grill. Perfect cook every time I use it! Definitely worth the money.”
(verified Amazon review)
“Takes a lot of guesswork out of the perfect steak. Saves money as nothing is getting overcooked. My husband loves it. Very easy to use.”
(verified Amazon review)
“This is the closest to perfect and fool proof I’ve found. Love the ability to do other things while checking the app on my phone for progress.”
(verified Amazon review)
The honest gripe is connectivity. A vocal group of owners reports Bluetooth dropouts when the phone wanders too far or too many walls get in the way, and a smaller group had probes die after months of use. Keeping the charger dock near the kitchen as the signal relay solves most range complaints, but if your grill lives far from the house behind brick, read that limitation seriously, or consider the WiFi based Chef iQ instead.
Who It Is For
Anyone who cooks meat more than once a week and still second guesses doneness: weeknight chicken cooks, weekend grillers, and whoever inherits the Thanksgiving turkey. Skip it if you mostly cook thin fast foods like shrimp, bacon, or smash burgers, where a probe has nothing to sink into and a cheap instant read thermometer serves you better.
For about $80 on Amazon, you stop donating good meat to the god of just five more minutes.
Dinner, done exactly once. It is around $80 on Amazon right now.
More from Must See Products
See all
The Cordless Scrubber That Cleans the Tub While You Stand Up
A cordless spinning brush on a long handle strips away soap scum while your knees stay dry.
This $30 Desk Lamp Quietly Outperforms Models Ten Times the Price
A clamp on light bar that washes your whole desk in even light for less than a dinner out.