The original
Meater had all the rf electronics in the probe. (The wood block only charged the unit via replaceable battery power when you were storing it.) So your phone or other Bluetooth receiver needed to be in range of the probe itself. Unfortunately if your probe was in an all-metal grill/cooker (think Faraday cage) your usable distance was only a few feet. I suppose you could try to use a separate commercial BT repeater to increase this but (based on
Amazon reviews) I know of no one who tried.
But the makers of
Meater understood that this was a huge downside to their product and came out with the
Meater+ or
Meater Plus which included a BT repeater in the wood base. They now advertise a 50m (165') range that is common for temperature probes with a base unit placed in the open air. Reviews are all good now. You can get both, the original Meater for $70 or the Plus for $100, but I'd sure not recommend getting anything except the Plus.
Also, there are now a lot of Meater knockoffs in the $40-$70 price range. Many advertise 165' range but reading the reviews, it's pretty clear they do NOT have a repeater so if you intend to use them in a metal cooker, you WILL be disappointed beyond a few feet. The exception is MeatStick, whose literature clearly spells out which models do and don't have the repeater and gives realistic ranges for them under various environments, e.g. open-air grilling vs metal-smoker. I'm only guessing, but when Apption Labs (Meater's original maker) was bought by Traeger, there was probably an arrangement to continue a somewhat independent MeatStick line. I'm also assuming that after all the original $40 knock-offs, Meater's makers (and certainly Traeger would have insisted on this) got the repeater feature under intellectual property protection, ie a defendable patent, so it will be a few more years before <$50 MeaterPlus knockoffs are a Thing.
If I thought the $100 MeatstickX (X for extended) or MeaterPlus would truly last a decade under daily use, I'd probably find the money for one, but for now it's beyond my reach. My $10 probes-wired-to-base station transmitter work fine for 95% of my cooks. I do an occasional rotisserie cook but presently only my pellet grill can be easily used with rotisserie. And there the free end of the rotisserie shaft butts up to my pellet hopper so there's no room to attach probe wires and base station on the shaft so it all can rotate with the meat. So I'm stuck with analog thermometers and frequent opening of the lid when I'm getting close to desired internal temp.
. Find something that works for you thats in your budget and enjoy the cook!
