MEATER Plus Review

What it is

The MEATER Plus is a leave-in wireless meat thermometer built around one idea: no cables. The entire device is a single stainless probe that goes fully into the meat, with all the electronics inside it — there’s nothing trailing out through the lid, no base station wired to probes, nothing to catch or melt. It pairs with your phone (extending its range through the wooden charger block, which acts as a Bluetooth repeater), and its app turns the readings into a guided cook. It’s the most modern-feeling thermometer in the category, and for a lot of cooks the cable-free design alone is the reason to buy it.

Dual sensors and the smart app

The MEATER’s cleverness is in that single probe. It carries two sensors: one at the tip reads the meat’s internal temperature, and one at the base reads the ambient temperature of the cooking chamber — so a single probe tells you both what the meat is doing and how hot the grill is, without a second cable. The app uses those readings to run a guided cook with an estimated finish time, which is genuinely useful for planning: you know roughly when to start the sides or when guests should arrive. Set a target, and it alerts you as the meat approaches and hits it. It does the core job — tell you the temperature, alert you — with more polish and less clutter than a wired probe.

Where it shines

The MEATER Plus is at its best on a single, unhurried cook— a roast, a reverse-seared steak, a whole chicken, a pork tenderloin. Push the probe in, set the target, and the cable-free design means nothing gets in the way as you cook, flip or move the meat; you just watch the app. The ambient sensor doubling as a grill thermometer is a real bonus on a cooker without a good built-in gauge. And because it’s so tidy and gadget-forward, it’s one of the best giftsyou can give someone who cooks — useful, impressive, and not something most people buy for themselves.

Where it falls short

One real limit, and one smaller one. The real limit: it’s a single probe. If you want to monitor several racks of ribs, or the meat and a separate spot at once, you’d need multiple MEATERs — and at that point a four-probe base-station unit like the ThermoPro TP25costs far less and does more. The smaller point: it’s a backyard-range Bluetooth device, reaching roughly 165 ft through the charger repeater — fine for monitoring from inside the house or around the yard, but not from the store or overnight from bed. For that you want a WiFi model, which we cover in best WiFi & Bluetooth thermometers.

Battery, charging and everyday use

Living with the MEATER Plus is mostly a pleasure and occasionally a small chore, and it’s worth knowing both sides. The probe charges inside the wooden block that doubles as the range repeater — a single AAA battery in the block tops up the probe between cooks — and a charged probe runs comfortably through a long cook. The flip side of putting all the electronics in a slim probe is that you have to keep it charged and keep track of the block; there’s no base-station display to fall back on, so a dead phone or a probe left uncharged means no readout. Cleaning is easy — wipe the probe, don’t submerge the whole thing past its rated line — and inserting it correctly matters, since the safety notch marks how far in the ambient sensor should sit above the meat. None of this is difficult; it’s simply the trade for a cable-free design. Treat the probe with a little care and it’s one of the tidiest, most satisfying tools in barbecue — and, again, an excellent gift, because the experience is as much of the appeal as the accuracy. For quick end-of-cook checks it still pays to keep a cheap instant-read alongside it.

Who should buy it

Buy the MEATER Plus if you want the tidiest, smartest setup — a single wireless probe with nothing through the lid, dual internal-and-ambient sensing, and an app that estimates when dinner’s ready — and you typically cook one cut at a time. It’s the nicer object and the more elegant experience, and it’s our wireless pick in the best meat thermometers roundup. If you cook a full smoker of meat and want the most probes for your money, the four-probe ThermoPro TP25is the better value — we compare the two directly there. And whichever leave-in you choose, pair it with a fast instant-read for quick final spot-checks.