Thermoworks RFX First Impressions

[SmoqueBBQ]

Support told me today they have a few more firmware updates coming out and of those don’t fix my battery issues they’ll replace the probes.

Mine are all over the place now. I had the worst of the 4 probes that has steadily declined only get 1.25 hours last night. Two of them aren’t sending a signal to the gateway at all, but I’m not at the restaurant to troubleshoot those.

I do have high hopes for these so I hope they can get these issues worked out and have consistent connection and close to promised battery life.

 

[schlotz]

As promised here is the battery life testing update with the gateway ver 1.1.28-45
Probe one is now at 10% charge after 13hr 17m, probe two is at 20%. So, definite improvement but still far from the stated 50-60 hours. FYI, the gateway has been plugged into power the whole time.

 

[schlotz]

Final results: probe #1 17hr 18m - probe #2 17hr 41m

 

[SmoqueBBQ]

Final results: probe #1 17hr 18m - probe #2 17hr 41m

Nice. Still not 50 as they advertise, but I’d be ok with a consistent 17 hours.

 

[cwood]

Nice. Still not 50 as they advertise, but I’d be ok with a consistent 17 hours.

I'm sure if their design specs said they could get to 50, that they can improve firmware etc to tune to somewhere between 20 and 50. Give them a chance to work it. Despite my frustrations with my meaters and meater+ devices....sometimes I leave the probes for multiple days and they continue to work away....so the size to battery ratio is certainly within the realm of possible to get really long runs.

 

[schlotz]

While I do have a fundamental issue with a company that advertise/claim performance levels of a product they sell only to discover those claims to be incorrect, Thermoworks (TW) appears they might have been caught off guard with the actual experience by some of the RFX units people have purchased. My phone discussion with them was quite positive in that at no time did they deflect responsibility and they were truly interested in getting to the bottom of why the probes are not performing up to the 50-60 hours of battery life. Their gateway firmware update has definitely improved (at least for me) the battery life from less than 9 hours to over 17 hours. The question remains as to wether additional soft/firm ware can resolve the discrepancy. Another possibility is there was a bad batch of probes in the first release, which brings into light the lack of thorough QC testing procedures that should have discovered them. Of course, there's always internal pressure that can come into play when wanting to achieve a targeted roll out date. I'll be calling TW today to provide my latest testing results. Hopefully we all will end up with operating RFX units that meet the published specs.

FOLLOW UP: just got off the phone with tech support. They are aware of the improvement I experienced and indicated they are working to send out another Gateway update sometime on Friday which should bring the probes up to the 50 hour range. This update should happen automatically when the Gateway is turned on. I told them the last update did not do that and in fact I had to go through the manual process as explained back up in this thread (pg 4) by J jimboc22 . Regardless, best bet is to turn on the Gateway this coming Saturday morning and check the version number (should be greater than 1.1.28-45) and if necessary go through the manual update. We'll see

 

[bwana_don]

While I do have a fundamental issue with a company that advertise/claim performance levels of a product they sell only to discover those claims to be incorrect, Thermoworks (TW) appears they might have been caught off guard with the actual experience by some of the RFX units people have purchased. My phone discussion with them was quite positive in that at no time did they deflect responsibility and they were truly interested in getting to the bottom of why the probes are not performing up to the 50-60 hours of battery life. Their gateway firmware update has definitely improved (at least for me) the battery life from less than 9 hours to over 17 hours. The question remains as to wether additional soft/firm ware can resolve the discrepancy. Another possibility is there was a bad batch of probes in the first release, which brings into light the lack of thorough QC testing procedures that should have discovered them. Of course, there's always internal pressure that can come into play when wanting to achieve a targeted roll out date. I'll be calling TW today to provide my latest testing results. Hopefully we all will end up with operating RFX units that meet the published specs.

FOLLOW UP: just got off the phone with tech support. They are aware of the improvement I experienced and indicated they are working to send out another Gateway update sometime on Friday which should bring the probes up to the 50 hour range. This update should happen automatically when the Gateway is turned on. I told them the last update did not do that and in fact I had to go through the manual process as explained back up in this thread (pg 4) by J jimboc22 . Regardless, best bet is to turn on the Gateway this coming Saturday morning and check the version number (should be greater than 1.1.28-45) and if necessary go through the manual update. We'll see

Really glad to see your test results have improved, in line with what they told me yesterday as well.

Would you be willing to share the number of readings each probe showed during the session?

To do that you will need to use the web interface cloud.thermoworks.com (this will need to be done from a pc/laptop. select dashboard, then select the probe to drill down on, then select sessions - you will see a summary of your sessions to date, and it will include how many readings were taken. If you want to go even further, you can select that session, that will show you a graph of the readings, above the graph you select readings. That will show all of the readings for the probe with a time stamp. You should expect to see 5 readings for each time stamp - one from each thermometer in the probe and average. You can look at the time stamps and get a feel for how much time is occurring between each reading/time stamp. I am mostly curious if the number of readings (actually a push from the probe to the gateway) are going to be one of the limiting factors of how long the probes will last. All my previous tests until my gateway died were basically 1-minute intervals, no matter what the settings for each probe had been set too.

Don

 

[jimboc22]

Firmware update seems to have helped. Here are my results from 1.1.28-45.

One probe set to 1 degree intervals lasted just under 14 1/2 hours and the second probe set to 3 degree intervals lasted about 18 1/2 hours to zero. The gateway lasted less than 20 hours before the low battery alarm went off.

These numbers will work for me, better than 8 hours at least. I hardly ever smoke longer than 15 hours, and I'll probably just continue to use my Smoke or Signals for the really long cooks. I'll also keep the gateway plugged in during use like I do with the Signals, as even with the gateway plugged in overnight it still only showed 80%, then about 8 hours later I turned it on again after no use and it was at 54%.

Thanks everyone for all your work testing, contacting support and providing their responses to the rest of this group.

 

[bwana_don]

Funny story...ha ha

My zombie gateway has come back to life, might get named Lazarus. Jealous of the increased times you are seeing, I tried plugging it in again today, nothing, pressed the power button, it came up blinking blue and green lasted about 5 minutes. Was unable to connect it to Bluetooth, called support, they had me shut down my app and try it again, that worked. Firmware showed 1.1.26-44, was told by support that is the current one and a new one was coming out tomorrow. Looked at this thread and saw 1.1.28.45 was what some people had updated too. Updated the firmware manually per instructions provided previously, mine now reads 1.1.29-46. After tomorrow’s update they will not be doing anymore until after thanks giving.

My USB-A to USB-C cord is falling apart on the USB-C side. Support told me nothing special about the cord, just have to use a USB-A to USB-C.

Let the testing begin again.

Don

 

[schlotz]

Really glad to see your test results have improved, in line with what they told me yesterday as well.

Would you be willing to share the number of readings each probe showed during the session?

To do that you will need to use the web interface cloud.thermoworks.com (this will need to be done from a pc/laptop. select dashboard, then select the probe to drill down on, then select sessions - you will see a summary of your sessions to date, and it will include how many readings were taken. If you want to go even further, you can select that session, that will show you a graph of the readings, above the graph you select readings. That will show all of the readings for the probe with a time stamp. You should expect to see 5 readings for each time stamp - one from each thermometer in the probe and average. You can look at the time stamps and get a feel for how much time is occurring between each reading/time stamp. I am mostly curious if the number of readings (actually a push from the probe to the gateway) are going to be one of the limiting factors of how long the probes will last. All my previous tests until my gateway died were basically 1-minute intervals, no matter what the settings for each probe had been set too.

Don

Sure I can do that. Will do once I get home.

 

[jimboc22]

Updated the firmware manually per instructions provided previously, mine now reads 1.1.29-46.

I can confirm, I'm home sick today with nothing better to do so I tried pushing another firmware update. I now have 1.1.29-46 installed.

Such a clunky way to update firmware, having to remove and re-add the device to the app is so unnecessary, why no button to press on the settings page like for the Signals? At least it lets us know that it's updating the firmware during the process now.

 

[schlotz]

B bwana_don here are my results. Probe #1 had 5,270 readings over 17hr 18m which is ~5 readings/min (one for each channel 0-4) so the reading rate was 1 set every minute. Graph verifies the 1 min cycle. Probe #2 had 5,365 readings over 17hr 41m so similar 1 set of 5 every minute.

 

[bwana_don]

B bwana_don here are my results. Probe #1 had 5,270 readings over 17hr 18m which is ~5 readings/min (one for each channel 0-4) so the reading rate was 1 set every minute. Graph verifies the 1 min cycle. Probe #2 had 5,365 readings over 17hr 41m so similar 1 set of 5 every minute.

Thank you. Interesting, did not expect to see that many readings. I am 5 hours into a test with 4 probes. 1 probe is at 80%, the other 3 are at 60%. Expecting to see 20+ hours out of first probe, the other 3 at least 15 hours. Definitely heading the right direction. I can start planning my smoke with these over thanks giving. Settings on probe is not impacting longevity. For some reason signal strength on all probes is showing poor and they are within 10 feet of the gateway.

 

[jimboc22]

Firmware update seems to have helped. Here are my results from 1.1.28-45.

One probe set to 1 degree intervals lasted just under 14 1/2 hours and the second probe set to 3 degree intervals lasted about 18 1/2 hours to zero. The gateway lasted less than 20 hours before the low battery alarm went off.

These numbers will work for me, better than 8 hours at least. I hardly ever smoke longer than 15 hours, and I'll probably just continue to use my Smoke or Signals for the really long cooks. I'll also keep the gateway plugged in during use like I do with the Signals, as even with the gateway plugged in overnight it still only showed 80%, then about 8 hours later I turned it on again after no use and it was at 54%.

Thanks everyone for all your work testing, contacting support and providing their responses to the rest of this group.

Tested firmware 1.1.29-46 today. 1 degree probe is dead after 7 hours, 3 degree probe is still at 100%. So inconsistent. They are nowhere near fixing these and I'm probably killing my batteries by running them down and recharging over and over so I think I'm done messing around for the time being.

If nothing else, they are accurate, lol.

 

[schlotz]

I'd wait for the late Friday update and retest Sat morning after updating the gateway firmware.

 

[schlotz]

Thank you. Interesting, did not expect to see that many readings. I am 5 hours into a test with 4 probes. 1 probe is at 80%, the other 3 are at 60%. Expecting to see 20+ hours out of first probe, the other 3 at least 15 hours. Definitely heading the right direction. I can start planning my smoke with these over thanks giving. Settings on probe is not impacting longevity. For some reason signal strength on all probes is showing poor and they are within 10 feet of the gateway.

Actually, given that there are a total of five sensors on the probe (5th being ambient) with each one counting as a reading the 5000+ should be expected with 17 hours uptime with a 1 minute interval.

 

[SmoqueBBQ]

Tested firmware 1.1.29-46 today. 1 degree probe is dead after 7 hours, 3 degree probe is still at 100%. So inconsistent. They are nowhere near fixing these and I'm probably killing my batteries by running them down and recharging over and over so I think I'm done messing around for the time being.

If nothing else, they are accurate, lol.
View attachment 707508

I updated to that firmware today and so far tonight I have one probe that gave a low battery warning after 2.5 hours. 2 at 80% and one that won’t communicate. All probes say poor signal and they’re no more than 20’ from the gateway.

I did end up ordering more before I received these and they’ll be shipped on the 20th. I’ll be curious to see how those compare.

 

[jimboc22]

I updated to that firmware today and so far tonight I have one probe that gave a low battery warning after 2.5 hours. 2 at 80% and one that won’t communicate. All probes say poor signal and they’re no more than 20’ from the gateway.

I did end up ordering more before I received these and they’ll be shipped on the 20th. I’ll be curious to see how those compare.

I'm curious too. My probe that is lasting around 8 hours was one of the first shipped, it was part of a starter kit that shipped on October 21st. The one that has been going for 22 hours and is still at 60% was a single probe shipped on November 6th. The serial numbers are about 9,500 apart.

 

[schlotz]

I'm curious too. My probe that is lasting around 8 hours was one of the first shipped, it was part of a starter kit that shipped on October 21st. The one that has been going for 22 hours and is still at 60% was a single probe shipped on November 6th. The serial numbers are about 9,500 apart.

Very interesting. This does hint at potential batch problem of probes. Just for ref, my two probes are 6334 & 8258.

 

[bwana_don]

First test with 1.1.29-46

Probe, Setting, Duration, Readings Serial #
Probe 1, 1, 23hrs 39 min, 7260 m100006599
Probe 2 , 1.5, 16 hrs 5 min, 4855 m100009080
Probe 3, 2, 14 hrs 17 min, 4390 m100006601
Probe 4, 3, 18 hrs 34, min, 5705 m100006598

The probe that lasted the longest had not been in the charging block for a couple of days. It required longer than 20 minutes to fully charge (red light to stop blinking). All the others had been in their charging blocks, showed 100% at start, but now I wonder. Best practice for a long cook, might be to pull them and put them back in to top off the charge. Temperature interval, still not making a difference.

Definetly usable for me at this point. Will test again if another update comes out.

With a gateway and 4 probes I am at 5 devices. The free cloud subscription only allows for 6 devices on the cloud. Signals and smokes only allow for a 24 hour session on the cloud and 1 minute reporting. Thinking that might be what I am seeing for 1 minute readings on the web interface.

Don