Meater 2 Plus is a multi-functional thermometer that you can use on your Android phone
Meater 2 Plus is a wireless meat thermometer that connects to your phone during any type of cooking. The proven concept is built on the new Meater model, set up and thought out more than ever. It has high temperature resistance and better connectivity, so you can insert the probe into almost anything, even deep frying.
On a personal level, I like to cook, especially protein. That means smoking, burning, receding, and everything in between. If it needs care and attention while I’m cooking, I’m there. The process is curative but can be difficult. For every cook, different temperatures and variables are at play. You have to worry about the local temperatures and the behavior of proteins against heat.
That’s why the Meater 2 Plus has become my absolute favorite tool for smoking and casual cooking. The probe essentially brings any cook to your smart home, allowing you to keep an eye on your chicken, beef, or any other protein from your Android phone.
Build and Quality
It screams quality, even investigation
On its spine, it carries five internal temperature sensors in the first part of the probe. Those five sensors work to come up with an accurate measurement of the temperature of your protein. On top of the probe sits an ambient temperature sensor, which indicates your grill’s ambient temperature or oven temperature. That aspect has become very important to me.
Traditionally, multiple smokers or probe sets come with several probes that can be connected to a single power unit. Each can read a single temperature and report as such. If you are looking to read the ambient temperature of your cooker, you will need to set up a new probe that sits above the grates.
The Meater 2 Plus doesn’t need that. It can easily read the ambient temperature and report back as well as the internal temperature of your protein.
The build is one of the first things you notice when you take the Meater 2 Plus out of the box. It’s big, but not so much that it’s limiting. It comes with a charging base similar to the original Meater probes. The base holds a small LED charging status light and a sliding probe section inside. On the back there are a few magnets that allow you to place the station near your cooker, which is important if you want a strong connection. The charging process is powered by a single AAA battery, which can send enough juice to the probe to power it for 12 hours in just 15 minutes, just like a regular quick charge.
Both the base station and the probe itself are very well built. The look and design of the probe is different. It builds on the look of the original Meater probe and makes it even more intimidating by introducing a metal tip at the end that pops out during cooking.
The Meater 2 Plus, from a design perspective, looks great. Something like a meat probe doesn’t need to look good in any way. It just needs to read the temp. However, something about the Meater 2 Plus is that it looks so good to get the meat out of the grill or smoker. It may be just a tool, but it looks good.
Investigation and performance of the application
Cooking is made very easy
No matter how cool the Meater 2 Plus looks, it has to work to work. Fortunately, it works, and it does its job well.
One of the cooks I tested the Meater 2 Plus on was a rack of beef ribs. I chose that because beef ribs can be difficult to do well. They need to reach a temperature of about 165 degrees Fahrenheit and then bake for another hour or two until they reach about 202 degrees.
What makes it difficult without a skilled probe is that beef ribs can take a short time or no time at all, depending on the cut and thickness. Although it should have taken several hours to reach 165 degrees, it only took two to reach the stamp, something that is easy to manage if you have a good probe.
The entire cook is easier when your probe is cordless, allowing you to move it to different locations frequently, depending on which areas are your smoker/grill hotspots. It’s also easy to tell if it’s sitting in a hot spot because the Meater 2 Plus will tell you, which I didn’t know I was missing before.
Building on that, the Meater 2 Plus allows you to go further than conventional probes would. Beef ribs need to be browned at the end of cooking to help them render the fat inside. I put the probe on butcher paper or foil when using wired probes to get a good reading. That’s almost impossible with ribs because you don’t want to touch the bone, and stabbing blindly looking for a small window of meat is almost impossible. It will completely throw off your temperature reading if you don’t get it right.
With the Meater 2 Plus, I was able to leave my probe in place and wrap the meat as is. No repositioning and no destroying the integrity of the wrap by poking it.
When the ribs reached 202, I immediately knew about the Android app. The app is basic, but it gives valuable insight to your chef. That includes the estimated time remaining before you reach your target temperature. It also provides a graph so you can read the internal and external temperature at a given time, ensuring that your grill/smoker is not changing, and the internal temperature of the protein is rising.
The Meater Android app showed exactly what I wanted to see during the test cooking. The temperature rise was normal and within the limits I am used to for this type of cooking. By all accounts, the Meater 2 Plus worked as it should.
Once it got the level I was aiming for, my Pixel 8 Pro beeped a lot, which I don’t mind when I’m smoking. Overall, the Android app is easy to use and even offers tips for your next cook, wherever you are.
Everything was said and the ribs came out whole. Give them the way they should and they come out super soft. Being able to leave the probe during the coiling phase meant I could pull them where needed.
It’s also worth mentioning that I’ve backed this up with a reliable instant-read thermometer and traditional probes. During cooking, the temperatures were consistent with the Meater 2 Plus where they should be. The probe is certified to ±0.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Anything less than that is nothing in my book.
Excellent flexibility
The original Meater probe had several limitations. One was that the ambient sensor could not be exposed to anything above 500 degrees, give or take. The Meater 2 Plus, on the other hand, can handle nearly 1,000 degrees of ambient heat, meaning it can be used over an open fire.
For reference, a campfire stays at about 600 degrees, which means you can hit a tomahawk steak on the coals with the Meater 2 Plus probe after it’s backfired with no problems. That might anger some diehard open-flame cooks, but it certainly means you won’t be eating expensive meat because you want to do it the old-fashioned way.
The Meater 2 Plus is also waterproof, which didn’t blow me away. Then I realized that deep frying is done with liquid, and additionally, the Meater 2 Plus can be used for deep frying. I know there are options out there for checking the temperature while deep frying, but the fact that the Meater 2 Plus can handle those cooks is a real plus.
As far as I know, the Meater 2 Plus can handle almost any cook, except for pressure cooking. I don’t recommend trying to pressure cook, which could damage the internal sensors and break the probe.
Communication problems
One of the only negatives I encountered was the Bluetooth connectivity of the base charging station. From what I found, it needs to be very close to the probe itself during cooking. Its magnetic back can be placed in the cooler of a smoker or grill, like a pellet hopper.
In my case, the smoker is outside the house, but even entering the house resulted in an exposed Bluetooth connection. That or the Bluetooth connection was slow.
Personally, I don’t like using Bluetooth to get data from a smoker, as most modern ones have PIDs that can connect to your phone. It never works well, whether it’s because of the outside heat or the outside walls of the house.
On the other hand, there is little problem connecting the base to the Internet, which gives access to a cloud connection that can be viewed from anywhere. To do so, you need a dedicated device to stay connected via Bluetooth to the charging base. From there, another device logged in to your account can access all online inquiry data.
This is not the best way to access the internet connection. I wish the base of the Meater 2 Plus could connect directly to Wi-Fi rather than relying on a nearby device to tether it to the cloud.
I didn’t find these loops to be large enough to remove the Meater 2 Plus much. You can easily fix Bluetooth problems by plugging in a tablet and placing it next to the station so it’s always connected, but that means another connected device.
Final thoughts
The Meater 2 Plus comes in at $130. That’s not cheap, especially for a meat thermometer. However, the flexibility that the Meater 2 Plus brings is unreal.
Open flames, deep frying, smoking, reverse heat, pan frying, and even sous vide are on the dining table. It really is a temperature sensor that allows for a ton of flexibility in cooking. Not only that, but it takes a lot of care in preparing the protein, no matter what you’re cooking.
As someone who always thought the Meater line was too expensive for what it is, the Meater 2 Plus addresses all of my concerns. At $130, it’s impossible to recommend to everyone and traditional thermometers work well for anyone. However, I think a $130 cooking tool that can be used literally anywhere in your kitchen or outdoor cooking area is justified if you want to expand.
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