Defective - but still rates a big 5+? - Wonderful monitoring system...
In fact, maybe because of the defect, that's what cements my rating of 5 - read on...[if you want to skip the background stuff, the actual review is further down]I have had a long-standing disagreement with my brother-in-law about the best way to cook steaks - sear first, then indirect heat or, visa-versa...he lives on the east coast and I on the other, so it has taken years of back-and-forth visits for this thing to play out...our taste tests have been somewhat indefinite...with the advent of AI, I checked in recently with my favorite chatbot at the moment, Gemini Pro, and had a discussion - it was definitely in the indirect first/sear-after camp, so it agreed unfortunately with my brother-in-law :( ...In any event, with the price of beef so high anymore (my last 2" thick, prime cowboy steak put me back over $80!!) and therefore trying to be extra careful, I decided it was time to move past my testy instant-read thermometer assist and invest in an always-in probe so I could more easily monitor the cooking progress during the indirect period, particularly during those last few minutes when the cooking curve begins to rise so much more quickly toward the end...OMG! So many choices - I had no idea...lots of features to digest and prices ranging all over the place...searching Google is not much help when it comes to something like this with so many off brands...you simply have to ponder the Amazon reviews, look at various the feature sets and try to evaluate those against the pricing - a daunting task when there are so many...I have a friend who would most probably populate an Excel spreadsheet for such a task, but I don't have the patience he does...Ok, enough of the background and on to my ACTUAL REVIEW of the BBQOVN BQ08 and its features:2 PROBES - I most often cook two or more steaks, so having the two probes seems like a good idea since no matter what, the cooking surface is going to be uneven and the steaks will be so too, and, if you use them for a big turkey or roast, monitoring multiple points is a good idea...MULTI-SENSOR - being able to watch the progression of the cooking from outside edge to the middle as the cook goes on is great, and it greatly adds to the comfort level of protecting against missing the ideal pull-point for your meat...additionally, being able to monitor the ambient temperature of the cooking surface is really helpful by allowing you to modulate your grill temp (I have a gas grill so pretty easy to do) to keep is near the ideal for best indirect cooking, e.g., trying to keep the cooking temp near 375-400F degrees for the indirect period...the single tip-only-sensor probes cannot do this...BOOSTER BOX - the "system" works such that the probes communicate to the booster box placed near the grill so they can penetrate the grill enclosure at all times, with the box then connecting to your Wi-Fi so that it can communicate at all times with the app on your phone - that way you always have access to monitoring no matter where you are...connectivity was all that you need to roam wherever...APP - lots of settings...all the things you would expect to see and probably more - even "flip" reminders and such...BUILD OF THE BOOSTER - robust construction, sturdy...nice magnetic base to mount anywhere on your grill...readability is nice and you can easily use it without the app since it has its own readouts, though in that mode you are limited to just seeing the tip-sensor...looks and feels professional and finished...So, I found the BBQOVN BQ08 system to have a great combination of features and value when I compared to the wide range of other choices on Amazon, which numbered in the dozens - I don't think you could go wrong!As to my title - I did have an issue - the tip-sensor on one of the probes was defective, DOA - it never read past 95F degrees...fortunately, since I had it in the mode where I was watching all 7 of the sensors on my phone, I could see that it was wrong as the cook progressed and therefore based my pull-point on its number 2 sensor (I nominally compared it to the difference I was seeing on the tip and number 2 sensor on the other probe)...The defect would not have been so easy to see if the feature set of the system was not so robust. Of course, the next morning I reported this to Amazon and they set up a replacement right away!UPDATE - Got the replacement set and used it for my Thanksgiving turkey - both probes worked flawlessly and tracked the progress just great with all sensors - having both the booster display at the oven and the phone app display to carry around really works well...placed one probe in the thigh area and one in the breast...wound up taking bird out a bit earlier than the suggested time on the Butterball package since the temps told me it was ready...bird was perfectly cooked!