Friday, November 1, 2013

Camp Chef Wireless Thermometer

Camp Chef LTRM Wireless Thermometer with ProbeWe got this for Christmas two years ago and it has given us many a good meal. We've had one problem, the batteries are on the bottom and tend to eventually drop out of their placement which cuts power to the base. I just push them back in again and I'm in business. Otherwise, everything has worked fine.

I have had two of these they both have broken. The thermometer probe can't handle the temp of normal grilling even on my grill's lowest setting. The temps ruin the probe.

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I did not buy mine on Amazon... I purchased it at a grocery store for $17.

I have seen people say it worked once, then stopped working. This was my experience too... But being an engineer, I want to fix things rather than give up. Turns out that there is a slight flaw in the design in that the unit requires fresh batteries in the hand-held unit after about 1 to 2 cooks. I use mine for monitoring the air temp inside my smoker, rather than inserting it into the meat.

Since I don't use it the exact way it was meant to be used, I don't use all of the features. I don't like the way it works 100%, but that is mostly because I am using it in a way other than what it was intended. I cook things like brisket, and I may have the smoker going for as long as 24 hours, so for me it is about keeping the smoker at a low temperature... And I'm not cooking till the meat is done, I'm cooking till the meat is ready to fall apart, which is more about a long an low cook than it is about the internal temperature of the meat (the meat temp counts too, but the cooking temp is important to keep controlled).

The beeping alarm is too high-pitched for me to hear, so my wife has to tell me when it is going off... But for the most part the purpose is so that I can keep an eye on the temperature, without running outside every half hour.

As for the "it worked once then nothing" problem, what I notice is that the hand-held unit needs fresh batteries to work... I mean really fresh. When it stops working, it can't pick up the transmitted signal. The batteries are still good, just not "good enough". It probably won't work on rechargable batteries, as rechargables run at a lower voltage. I checked the voltage drop of the batteries when it is running, and it didn't seem to be drawing too much current, seemed like it should be good for months. The problem is that as soon as the voltage of the batteries drop below the "brand-new" state even a little, the unit looses it's range. This kind of sucks, but once I understood the cost of using it is that I must use fresh batteries each time, I decided I could live with that... I spend $60 on meat, $20 on various other things like spices, veggies and charcoal... I can live with spending another dollar on batteries.

the current consumption is low enough that if you could figure out how to add another half-volt to the voltage of the battery, you could probably only change batteries every few months.

It has a flashlight built into the hand-held unit... Don't use it if you want your battery to last.

I can see this being a 2 star unit for most people...if they know it just needs batteries... One star for those that think it is dead when it really just needs new batteries. I bought this to replace a $40 unit I bought at the same store that worked fine, but I didn't like it at all (the remote displayed the cook timer, but not the temperature, only the base had the temp, the remote had an alarm and a timer... LAME). So I'm really happy with this unit despite the weakness of needing fresh batteries with each use, thus the 4 stars.

The base unit seems to not need fresh batteries constantly, but your experience may vary.

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Bought this present for my father for Christmas. We cannot get it to work at all. Doesn't read the temperature. Pretty unsatisfying.

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I didn't buy Camp Chef LTRM Wireless Thermometer with Probe last fall because of some of the reviews I read here. Instead, I bought the maverick thermometerMaverick Remote Smoker Dual Probe Wireless Thermometer ET-73, which is a disaster. The maverick probes are unbelievably very poor quality. I had 6 fail in 2 months (and I was babying them because I had been warned of their poor quality shame on me). The Maverick was a total waste of money.

I met the Camp Chef product manager at the national hardware show a few weeks ago. I told him about some of the issues I had seen written up. He told me they have made some modifications to improve the battery issue and more importantly, to change their probe design by giving it extra "armor" (much heavier mesh and insulation around the probe wires) to make the probes more durable. I talked him into giving my partner and me each one of the new models. I have used it about 8 times already and my partner has use his about 20 times (he is a true smoker fanatic) with zero issues, so it seems they have beaten most of the quality challenges mentioned by others.

The only minor issue I still note is that the alarm tone is at such a high pitch that I can't hear it (nor can my partner), but my wife and children can. I don't care, but it drives my kids crazy (not necessarily a bad thing...)

I will continue to monitor performance and I will post an update if I have issues.

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