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Weber Connect will be a useful tool for grillers of all skill levels
If you haven't been keeping up with the latest in backyard-barbecue news, Weber is tackling smart and connected grilling in a big way this year. The company announced its WiFi-enabled SmokeFire pellet grills back in November, which will be available later this month. This week at CES, it debuted the Weber Connect Smart Grilling Hub: a standalone device that can equip any grill with Bluetooth and WiFi smarts. Both of those products tap into Weber Connect, a powerful mobile app that will help grillers and aspiring pitmasters of all skill levels cook without worrying they might ruin dinner.
Weber's grilling hub equips any grill with WiFi smarts
It may seem unnecessary, but WiFi has become an essential barbecue tool. Companies like Traeger have been equipping pellet grills with the wireless connectivity that allows you to control and monitor your grill remotely -- even when you're not at home. The feature is very helpful for longer cooking sessions, so that you don't have to constantly check on a brisket, or stay near the grill, for the entire 12 hours it takes the smoked slab of meat to finish.
BioLite’s HeadLamp 330 is listed at its lowest price yet, $40
It isn't just laptops and phones that are getting marked down for Black Friday. Some of our favorite outdoor gear will be discounted, too.
Weber embraces modern grilling with a WiFi-enabled pellet model
WiFi-enabled pellet grills are having a moment, and rightfully so. They allow you to control and monitor your grill from afar, which is very convenient, especially you're smoking a piece of meat for eight hours or more. Several companies have already jumped on the bandwagon, with Traeger, Rec-Tec, Green Mountain Grills and others all offering models with built-in connectivity. Until now, one of the biggest names in backyard grilling had yet to do the same: Weber. Today, the company is changing that with the introduction of its SmokeFire grills.
Traeger adds Alexa voice control to its line of WiFi-enabled grills
Traeger's WiFi-enabled grills have a lot of handy features that are made possible through wireless connectivity. You can control or monitor the temperature and more remotely, so you don't have to venture outside unless you want to visually inspect your progress. Today, Traeger is taking the connectivity tools a step further by adding voice control through Alexa to its WiFire-equipped grills.
The best gear for your backyard party
Ah yes, sweet summertime. The few months of the year when your time is best spent outside, and that means time in the backyard, if you're blessed with one. Here's all the gear you need to turn your backyard into an outdoor summertime haven.
KitchenAid’s $3,199 SmartOven+ connects to Google Home and Alexa
KitchenAid's water- and sauce-resistant Smart Display got most of the attention at CES 2019, but the company also announced a smart oven, which it promised would come with powered grilling, steaming and baking stone attachments. Now, the SmartOven+ is ready. You can purchase the single configuration for $3,199 or the double for $4,799; a combo set-up will arrive later this year. As for the attachments, the powered grill add-on ships with the oven, but you'll have to order the others separately.
McCormick's concept grill plays music based on what you're cooking
As someone who won't turn down an invite to a barbecue, the one thing missing in my life is a grill. That's the part about living in New York City that saddens me. So, when McCormick invited me to check out its new concept grill, the SUMR HITS 5000, you know I couldn't say no. Much to my disappointment, because the event was indoors, there wasn't any actual grilling involved. Still, it was a good opportunity to see the SUMR HITS 5000 in person, which features a built-in DJ station that can play music based on what you're cooking. The grill uses a mix of capacitive touch sensors, computer vision and machine learning to do this, and McCormick says it custom developed the hardware and software to show how to "combine the fun of music and act of grilling together."
Traeger Ironwood 650 review: WiFi is the ultimate pitmaster
I'll admit it: I was skeptical that a WiFi-connected grill could really improve my casual culinary exploits. During my review of Traeger's Timberline 850 though, I would discover it's actually very useful -- especially for things that take several hours to cook like pulled pork, brisket and ribs. With its 2019 lineup, Traeger extended that WiFi tech to all of its new grills instead of reserving it for the premium Timberline Series. At $1,200, the new Ironwood 650 still isn't cheap, but it offers a lot of what the more expensive Traeger grills do while saving you a few hundred dollars.
Traeger makes built-in WiFi a standard grill feature
In 2017, Traeger added WiFi connectivity to its line of wood pellet grills with the Timberline series. While being able to control and monitor your grill remotely is more handy than you might think, the privilege was limited to two models with a starting price of $1,700. Sure, you could also send recipes from the company's app to the Timberline 850 and Timberline 1300 too, but that's still a big investment for a grill. Today, the company revealed its 2019 lineup, and the so-called WiFire technology is available across the board. And the best part is the most affordable model starts at $799.
This portable, solar-powered oven was built for the apocalypse
One of the things I love most about CES is the array of fascinating gadgets I come across. I'm talking stuff that's not a smartphone or a laptop. Case in point: this portable, solar-powered oven. GoSun's Fusion electric stove has an integrated heating system that can heat up to 550 degrees Farenheit, making it capable of cooking a meal within 20 minutes, with only sunshine as fuel. The company says the Fusion is five times more efficient than a traditional oven, and claims it can cook food with the same amount of energy needed to power a lightbulb.
Traeger Timberline 850 review: BBQ goes high tech
Between chopping or hauling wood, shoveling coals and moving around large cuts of meat, it can be exhausting. But a little technology can help ease the relentless grind.
Harvard engineering class tries to make the best BBQ smoker
As part of a 14-week-long assignment, 16 Harvard engineering students were given the task to create the perfect brisket. But what did they need to do that? A really, really good BBQ smoker. To build one, Engineering Sciences professor Kevin Parker landed his class a big-name client willing to fund the project: kitchen goods retailer Williams-Sonoma. The catch? It had to outdo the Big Green Egg -- a charcoal-powered kamado-styled ceramic smoker considered to be the best in the business. And, after months of working on it, the result was The Harvard Smoker, which is designed to consistently produce the best possible brisket. The contraption's hourglass shape is meant to spread heat evenly throughout the meat, while a slew of heat sensors send temperature readings to a smartphone -- and this becomes extremely important in what's typically a cooking process that takes 12 to 15 hours.
Solar-powered grill cooks your food no matter the weather
However much you may like grilling food on a warm day, you probably don't like dealing with gas tanks or other typical grill hassles... and most solar cookers won't help much if it's overcast outside. The upcoming GoSun Grill might be a smarter way to handle those backyard shindigs, however. It can bake, boil and roast meals for eight people using a sunlight-powered thermal battery that will keep cooking no matter how gloomy it gets outside. Yes, you can have some grilled chicken at the beach even if it starts raining. The reflector-based system also doesn't require you to flip your food, and it shouldn't dry out your moister meats and veggies.
Lynx's SmartGrill tells you how to cook your meal
Grilling is often a delicate art -- it's all too easy to undercook your burgers or burn your veggies, even if you're a seasoned pro. Lynx doesn't think you should have to learn by wrecking your meals, though. Its newly launched SmartGrill takes the uncertainty out of outdoor cooking by guiding you through the entire process. The grill itself will ask you what you're making (and how you're making it), turn up the heat and give you audiovisual cues when it's time to flip or remove your food. It'll monitor the temperature on its own, and it even learns your preferred cooking times to make sure you get that medium-rare steak every time. You can also use Android and iOS apps that walk you through preparation, so you won't have to worry about stepping away for a few minutes.
Mouth-based bling MP3 player puts your tunes on retainer
It's time to give your pockets a rest. Take a cue from Parsons student Aisen Chacin and stick your MP3 player where it belongs: in your mouth. The catchily-named Play-a-Grill combines bone-conducting music playback with a classic bit of bling-based technology. This "attempt to provide an unusual display and interface in comparison to typical audio/visual stimulation and digit based control panel" utilizes an iPod Shuffle knockoff, which sits in the roof of the wearer's mouth for some good, old fashioned tongue control over music playback. At the moment, the player looks to be more art project than consumer product (complete with a Nelly-quoting paper), but perhaps this is the iPod killer everyone's been searching for all along.
Windows Phone 7 beats iPhone 4 and Android ... in a grilling contest (video)
Let's face it, it's a question the world's been dying to know the answer to: which of the T-Mobile G2, HTC Surround and iPhone 4 will withstand a (literal) grilling the longest? Well, just in time for a mildly singed breakfast today, we have the answer. As you might have surmised from the title, HTC's WP7-equipped Surround showed the most endurance, though in the end it too cashed out its Earthly credits and moved on to that great scrapyard in the sky. Video of its final moments awaits after the break.
TUAW's Daily App: Weber's On the Grill
It's Memorial Day, and hopefully that means you're celebrating the onset of summer by putting some meat on a hot grill until it tastes amazing. If you need a little help, though, Weber's official iPhone app (or the iPad version) can be there -- it's got references, recipes, tips, grilling timers, and even a shopping list feature (although if you're planning to grill today, hopefully you've been marinating since last night!). The app is excellent, with big, colorful pictures, a host of options for serious grillers, and more recipes than you can cook in one summer. You might think that it's a bit pricey at $4.99, but don't forget that a comparable recipe book (there are over 250 recipes in the app) would be much more expensive. And if you're grilling so much that you need an app to help you cook, why not shell out for the best? If you're really that cheap, there are a few other griller's helpers apps out there (and Grill-It! isn't bad for just 99 cents), but in this case, the five bucks is worth it. Good luck at the BBQ today!
Well Fed Buff: Warp Burgers
Well Fed Buff serves up tasty dishes to boost your HP, stats and appetite – with that special WoW twist, of course. Sorry Well Fed Buff is a little late. The burgers kept warping off the grill. But here they are in all their glory. I'd like to dedicate this week's WFB to my mom. Congrats on Level 40! I remember when I first wandered into Terokkar Forest just after the release of the burning crusade. I have to admit the Warp Stalkers creeped me out just a little bit. I found a wee bit of revenge I creating these tasty burgers. The in-game version yields one Warp Burger per cut of Stalker Flesh. This recipe restores 7500 health over 30 sec. If you spend at least 10 seconds eating you will become well fed and gain 20 Agility and Spirit for 30 min.
Sony Sauce for your PS3 BBQ, sir? Only in Japan!
We all had a good laugh at the meat-lovin' ingenuity of the PS3 grill, but Japan is also well up on Sony-related humor. As a response to Sony's "SIXAXIS Emmy," someone at Rendering Ranger (a weird T-shirt brand in Japan) has decided to poke fun at The Machine by creating a condiment called "Actually, the Sauce is Sony." It seems to be just a repackaged version of Japan's Bull-Dog sauces, but the redesign is inspired. Ken Kutaragi's triumphant visage replaces the Bull-Dog logo; there's an "Emmy winner!" badge next to the accurately caps-locked SIXAXIS title; and there's the (world-)famous Sony grill render down below. The knockout joke is completed by the pricing structure of this Sony Sauce: the 20GB version should sell for ¥499 but has been reduced to ¥399 (though in this case, just for the sake of fun; not because of any lack of demand), while the 60GB tonkatsu model is listed as Open Price but sells for ¥599. "Actually, the Sauce is Sony" is on sale in very limited quantities in Japan's March Rabbit and Don Quijote discount stores.If any Western gamers can concoct a more elaborate and well-planned game industry joke, we'll tell the world all about it. Click through for more saucy pics (hee-hee) from Akiba Blog.
