Every long cook ends the same old way for me: hands on the smoker lid, a quick crack, a blast of heat and a puff of smoke escaping, then squinting at the bark while the needle crawls. You lose the seal, you lose the heat spike, and you lose the very smoke you built a fire to make. The whole reason I finally gave these wireless probes a serious look was to stop paying for that habit.
The short answer, after running both the MEATER Plus and the ThermoPro TempSpike through a season of briskets, pork butts, and a whole chicken or three: both will end the open-the-lid guessing game, and both will read your internal and ambient temps while you sit in the shade. The real difference is where you want to watch the numbers, how many probes you want on one cook, and how much you lean on the app to hold your hand. That decides which one earns a spot on your pit, not which one is 'better' in the abstract.
| MEATER Plus | ThermoPro TempSpike | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | About what you would pay for a good wireless probe | Usually a little less at today's price |
| App and guided cook | Polished, guided cooks that walk you through rest and doneness, learns how your cook behaves | Functional and reliable, but pitched at the raw readout rather than walking you along |
| Range from the pit | Bluetooth rated at 165 ft, steady across a backyard cook | Bluetooth rated up to 200 ft, similar real-world coverage in a yard |
| Monitoring away from the house | Bluetooth only, so you stay on your own property to keep the signal | WiFi on the TempSpike Plus model, so you can check from the couch or the store |
| Multiple probes | One probe, one cook at a time | Pair several TempSpike units to one app for multi-meat cooks |
| Probe waterproofing | Sealed probe you hand rinse and keep out of the dishwasher | Sealed waterproof probe with the same hand-rinse rule |
| Setup friction | One probe with both sensors built in, launch the app and go | A touch more fiddling to pair on first use |
How I Put Them Through Their Paces
I did not test these in a lab. I tested them the way most of us actually smoke, over about four months and a couple dozen cooks on a backyard wood pellet cooker. A 14 lb packer brisket overnight, a couple of pork butts for pulled pork, a rack or three of ribs, and whole chickens when I wanted a faster verdict. Same wood, same target of around 225 to 250 degrees on the grate, same two probes riding in the same meat side by side whenever I could.
I was looking for four things: whether the read was stable and repeatable against a wired probe I trusted, whether the range held up across my yard and through the kitchen wall, how much the app helped versus got in the way, and how the thing survived a whole season of grease, wind, and my own carelessness. A thermometer that reads perfectly on a countertop but dies on its third cook is no use to me.
A word on accuracy, since that is usually the first question. Against a wired probe I have trusted for years, the MEATER Plus internal sensor stayed within about a degree on most reads, and usually closer than that once the meat settled into the stall. The ThermoPro TempSpike ran the same. Both drift a little while the meat is still cold and climbing, and neither drifted enough to change a pull temp. The honest difference is where each reads its ambient number: the MEATER Plus reads the air at the tip right beside the meat, while the TempSpike reads farther up the shaft. Early in a cook that MEATER ambient figure can run a few degrees cooler than the real grate temp, so I learned to ignore it for the first hour and trust it once the cooker settled.
One thing I should say up front: both of these stayed accurate enough for real cooking. On a pork butt, a couple of degrees one way or the other changes nothing about the pull and the rest. Where they actually differ, night in and night out, is the experience around the numbers, and that is what the rest of this comparison is really about.
Where MEATER Wins
The MEATER app is the reason I kept reaching for it. I am not a numbers guy who wants a blinking readout and a beep. I want to be told, once, what to do and then be left alone. On a 9 am to 6 pm brisket, the MEATER app told me when the stall hit, estimated a rest well ahead of dinner, and did not nag me with alerts I already knew about. The guided cook is not gimmick fluff; it is the whole point of the thing, and it does the job without turning the cook into a spreadsheet.
It also learns your cook as it goes. Because the same probe reads both the internal temp of the meat and the ambient temp of the smoker air in one piece, the app has everything it needs to estimate how the two are heading, not just where they are right now. That means a thoughtful estimate of how long until you hit your pull temp, which is worth more to me than a live chart I still have to interpret myself.
I also like the single-piece design. Both the internal and ambient sensors live in one probe, so there is nothing to plug in, pair separately, or route on the grate. On a crowded smoker with three things going, that one less cable and one less thing to fumble is a real patience saver. The MEATER Plus probe measured within about half a degree of my old wired probe across a couple dozen cooks, which is plenty for pulling a pork butt at the right temp and resting it the right way.
The way the app notifies is the quiet half of why I prefer it. It does not beep at you every time the temp ticks past another whole degree. It waits until there is something worth saying: the stall, a rising ambient you did not expect, the point where a rest makes sense. After a few cooks it tells you what is about to happen before it happens, which is the difference between watching a chart and actually cooking. That calm is a real feature when you are also managing three other things on the grate.
If you cook close to the house, honestly want to be guided through a cook, and do not need to wander off the property to keep an eye on it, the MEATER app and single-probe simplicity make an easy case. That is the cook I do most weekends, which is why the MEATER Plus still sits beside my smoker.
The probe that keeps smoke on the meat and you off the lid
The MEATER Plus reads both internal and ambient temps from one probe, walks you through the rest, and lets you sit in the shade instead of cracking the lid. That is the whole point of a wireless thermometer.
Amazon Check Today's Price on the MEATER Plus →Where ThermoPro TempSpike Wins
The ThermoPro TempSpike catches up on the two things the MEATER skips in this price range. First, the Plus model runs on WiFi, so if you want to keep tabs on a guarded cook while you run to the hardware store or watch the game inside, you can actually leave the yard. The MEATER Plus is Bluetooth only, which means you stay on the property or the signal drops. That is a real, practical difference for anyone who loads a smoker in the morning and has a day to live.
In my own yard, Bluetooth range was never really the problem both companies point at. I could sit on the porch, walk to the shed, or stand in the kitchen and keep a signal. It was when I got in the truck to go grab a bag of pellets a few miles away that Bluetooth gave out and I suddenly had no eyes on the cook. If that scenario sounds like your Tuesday, the WiFi reach of the TempSpike Plus is worth real money to you.
Second, the TempSpike lets you run more than one probe at a time. If you are putting a brisket on one shelf and a couple of pork butts on the other, it is nice to have each piece on its own readout instead of moving one probe around and hoping you timed it right. Add in the usually lower price, and there is a clean, honest case for the TempSpike on multi-meat weekend cooks where WiFi reach and cost carry more weight than a fancy app.
The tradeoff is that the TempSpike app is plainer. It reads, it alerts, it does not hold your hand. For a guy who has been smoking for years and just wants numbers, that is fine, even preferable. For someone who wants the cook walked for them step by step, the MEATER app does more of the thinking, and that is the difference that most often decides the matter in practice.
The app decides this one more than the probe does. MEATER walks you through the stall and the rest. TempSpike hands you the numbers and trusts that you already know how to smoke.
The Setup and the Battery
Both of these charge through a base that doubles as a dock, and both will hold up for a season of weekend cooks on one fill-up. The MEATER Plus probe snaps into its block when you are done, and the TempSpike sits in a charging dock that dries it at the same time. Neither is a chore to keep topped up, and neither should need watching if you make it a habit to dock it when the cook comes off the pit.
On battery life I never had a hiccup in four months on either one. The MEATER Plus blocks into its base and tops back up fast, and the TempSpike dock does the same and dries the probe while it charges, which I appreciate in a damp climate. Both apps flag a low charge well before you need it, so you never discover it dead mid-cook. If your habit is docking the probe when the meat comes off, you will not think about power again until the season is over.
Setup is where the MEATER earns a small edge. First run, you launch the app, pair the probe, and it walks you through the whole thing in a couple of minutes. The TempSpike wants a touch more patience on the first pairing, especially if you are wading through a crowded Bluetooth menu with an older phone. It is a one-time cost, but it is a real one.
Cleaning is about the same for both: hand rinse the probe, skip the dishwasher, keep the base dry. Neither wants to be dunked or steamed, and neither has given me any grief on cleanup as long as I stayed out of the machine.
Who Should Buy Which
Buy the MEATER Plus if you cook close to the house, want the guided experience, and value a single probe that is dead simple to set up. It rewards the steady weekend cook who likes being walked through the stall and the rest without cracking the lid. If that sounds like your style, the MEATER Plus is the one I would put on my pit, and it is the one still sitting by mine.
Buy the ThermoPro TempSpike if WiFi reach matters because you want to check in while you are away, if you routinely run more than one hunk of meat in a single cook, or if the lower price tips an even decision. It is the more practical pick for the busy, multi-meat weekend, and it is the honest answer if you already know how to read a cook and just need the numbers to show up on your phone.
If you are on the fence and cannot decide, ask yourself one question: when you smoke, do you want to be told what to do and then left alone, or do you already know the moves and just want to keep an eye on the temps from farther away? Your honest answer points at the right one, and either way you stop cracking the lid.
The Bottom Line
Neither of these is a bad probe, and a backyard pitmaster could be happy with either. The honest split is simple: the MEATER Plus earns its keep on the guided app and the one-piece probe, and the ThermoPro TempSpike earns its keep on WiFi and multi-probe cooks when you want to wander farther from the pit.
If you want the fuller picture on day-to-day use, my long-term take is in the MEATER Plus review from seven months of regular smoking, and the honest version of what nobody tells you about the Bluetooth range and app quirks lives in the MEATER Plus honest review. Both are worth a skim before you spend.
Stop cracking the lid, start watching from the shade
The MEATER Plus gives you one-tip setup, a guided app, and both temps from a single probe. If you smoke close to the house and want the cook handled, this is the one.
Amazon Check Today's Price on the MEATER Plus →