Not getting temp alerts

Ehein001

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  1. Bull
So I bought my 700 a few weeks ago. The probes show the temp to my phone, but I’m not getting any temp alerts at all. Good thing I got lucky and somehow woke up with the brisket just at 162, but this easily could have been ruined. How is it possible that we spend what we spend and can’t get something as simple as a temp alert to actually work??!!
 
What kind of phone? Android? check that battery optimizer is not on for the app.
 
This has been a major issue with the recteq app for a long time. Sometimes I get the alerts and sometimes I don't, generally the alerts fail when it's a busy cooking day like around holidays, the graphs are hit or miss too. I'm a beta tester for the app and the information I have forwarded to recteq all I ever hear is we are working on it. Lots of folks gave up and use a 3 party thermometer they trust.
 
As much as I wanted to love this Recteq RT-590 (slightly smaller version of the RT-700) I can no longer recommend Recteq in good conscience. I really really liked this thing when I first got it and I saw what all of the rave reviews were about. Unfortunately all Recteq WiFi smokers have a fatal flaw: The notifications will fail to work during high-demand times like holidays. These also tend to be the time when you MOST need your grills notifications to work. If I ruin meat on a random Tuesday when it's just the wife and I that sucks but at least I'm not letting a dozen family members, friends or both down. That's basically what happens. The notifications just quit working w/o warning. No alerts when your smoker hits the set temperature, no alerts if your temp strays to a temperature far from your set temp and (maybe most importantly) any temperature alerts you set for the meat probes also will not work.

Pure speculation: it seems to be during holiday weekends and times when more people want to use their smokers to prepare meals for friends and family. This leads me to believe that it's a bandwidth capacity issue on Recteq's end. I don't care what the details are that cause it to be honest. I just care that this seems to happen EVERY holiday weekend or other times when more people will be using their smokers (Super Bowl is another example I can think of) and need the notifications to work. This is one of the biggest reasons to even having a WiFI enabled grill in the first place so if this aspect isn't functional I would just have bought a less expensive smoker w/o this feature and planned accordingly. Instead, I paid more to have a smoker that has two meat probes that I place in the meat I'm smoking, set the desired temp and then go about my business. The problem is that no notifications happen. I would have to constantly check this manually either at the grill itself or via opening the app on a regular basis. Now that I know that, that is. The annoying part is how you find out the first (or in this case, second) time it ever happens.

Easter weekend I put a ham on that I wanted to double smoke and then honey glaze. No problem, fire the smoker up and once it hit temp I put the ham on and inserted the two meat probes. I set the alert for 140 degrees and went on about my business expecting to have delicious and perfectly cooked ham for my friends. What we ended up with was ham flavored leather since it blew past that into the 170's because I never got a notification.

If this was the only time this happened I would give them a pass. It isn't. It happened again previously during a high-demand weekend. I was told by Recteq customer service that it was the first time it had ever happened, they were aware of the problem, it would be addressed and that it wouldn't happen again. Wrong. The first time I ruined a pretty spendy dinner consisting of dry-aged prime ribs due to no alerts/notifications from the grill.

Shame on me for not paying more attention this time around and trusting when they said that it was a one-off issue they were aware of and would be correcting. I was sold a feature that came at a premium that doesn't work. Recteq's official stance appears to be a mixture of "Well, it's not like your smoker doesn't work w/o the WiFi feature" (which I paid for, BTW) and "We're aware of the issue and are fixing it so that it doesn't happen again" with not enough resources being put into the latter, obviously.

At this point, I'm not sure what I would even recommend. I sold several of these for RT to friends and family members based on how well built they are coupled with the advanced features and functionality... when it works. Now I've just got some unhappy friends and family who listened to me when I told them these grills from Recteq were good to go. I just know that I will now add Recteq to the list of manufacturers that I can no longer recommend and it looks like my search for the perfect smoker/grill begins anew, sadly.
 
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I never blindly set notifications without at least monitoring the temp myself throughout the cook. Would you drive a Tesla and take a nap?
 
I never blindly set notifications without at least monitoring the temp myself throughout the cook. Would you drive a Tesla and take a nap?
The difference is that Tesla doesn't sell you on the ability to take a nap while the car is driving. RecTeq absolutely sells you on the feature of receiving notifications when you're preset alarm temperature is reached. I paid for a feature that should work. Full stop.
 

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