There have been a few threads on this in the past, but they all petered out. It's been a couple of years since the last one so I though I would bring it up again.
I'd like to find a way to get the temperature inside my grill reported to Hubitat.
I know about other products from Fireboard and Thermoworks and I have that stuff. I can automate a 20 hour cook if I need to. I have so many probes and transmitters, it's ridiculous.
But what I really want now is something that I haven't seen yet... Something small, that I can leave at the grill all the time. I want to start the grill and without doing any extra setup, just have the temperature reading in the house, or in my pocket, because a sensor is already in place. Heck, I can even power it with AC if I have to.
I am still using the Fireboard API with my Green egg and loving it. The driver is on Hubitat Package Manager as well. For @VelvetFoot, I am using the fireboard 2 with type K thermocouples.
PackageManagerNameand Info
You can see screenshots of the dashboards and rules I used here:
Not sure what would be the benefit of integration. Turn on a light maybe when something reaches temp? I mean most thermometers you can get reports on and notifications on your phone already.... That's just me though.
Do you think @snell would be okay with giving me the link as well?
I'm going read up on Fireboard2 first.
My needs are not as complex as yours, I would think.
Just notifications at certain temperature points, not fan control.
Fireboard is for a Grill (as was discussed in the original post)
So, even though the built in apps of most of the grill thermometers have some advanced features, like notifications, using the API in hubitat allows you to have much more robust integration.
If you click the link above that I posted from the other grill forum, I have it calculate the flip temp based on meat temp and meat set point at the start of the cook. I can also adapt it to catch the stall and notify me when to wrap if that is what I need. Also, it speaks as well as sends notifications to multiple devices when certain points are hit: Grill at temp, grill tool cold, grill too hot, food at temp, food ready to flip, etc.
This way, you don't have to sit directly in front of your grill while you are cooking.
No, it isn't required. But, integration of washer and dryer alerts aren't either. They are just nice things to have..... and this IS a home automation forum...... just sayin
For instance, the built in fireboard app that comes with the unit does have low and high temp alerts. However, you have to configure them at every startup, and they buried them into the app in different areas. They also have cook temp alerts, but you have to go three menus deep to change them on every cook. With this integration, I set up for what I use most of the time, and it's one click on each of them in the dashboard to change them.
As I've said, I haven't been able to find a thermocouple zigbee/z-wave sensor.
This approach has the cloud involved, which is a turn-off for me, but the data can be brought into Hubitat.
But, the Fireboard2 Pro costs $320, which is required for thermocouple, For me, the price is also high.
I think I'm going to pass.
Neat product though.
Thanks for the heads up.
I have a Thermoworks Signals unit, and would love to have it integrated, but it does not appear that Thermoworks publishes an API. There are ways around that but it would take someone with the know-how, hardware, and desire to do it. The fact that it doesn't exist now tells me that that person doesn't exist.
It says that they have a web dashboard. If that is accessible, you should be able to parse that page's underlying HTML for the actual data.
Somebody did make an integration in HA with their "Smoke" method here. But since it has absolutely no users it apparently must not be of much use. I looked over the GitHub for it's source but there are no URLs or anything in it so I have no idea how/where it is checking for data.
If someone is a glutton for punishment and has one of these... I would be willing to assist (like I did with the FireBoard).
Edit:
Found this Python project for it. Lot more useful information here it looks like.
My only issue with the Thermoworks thermaQ wireless is the severe lag in their cloud updates. It was always at least 5 minutes behind, sometimes more, of of live temperature. When I contacted support, they told me this was as designed. They do not have any with high temp (over 572 deg F) that will report live temperatures. I sent it back for a refund.
Their TC's are the absolute best. They are the only ones that send them with ISO 17025 accredited calibrations (albeit single point calibration which is a bit odd). However, the displays and the live data are abysmal.
I do these types of measurements for a living (and have been for over 35 years now). I have calibrated and determined uncertainty for device accuracies ranging from several degrees down to a few millikelvin (such as high end platinum resistance thermometers). I have never seen anything perform this poorly at this price point. (Yes, there are some really low grade devices that act this poorly, but you are paying less than $50 for those).
Basically, any integration of these devices is pointless. You are getting temperature measurements that are ~5 minutes old. So basically, if you put a steak on to monitor temperature, the data you see at time you should want to flip is about the temp it was when you put it on the grill.
This is where and why I wound up with the FIreboard. They are expensive. But, they are also accurate and responsive.
Actual issue as shown by testing
Correction to photo, the green circle is the setpoint, not the actual temperature. The actual temperature was 454, which means the Thermoworks is even farther off of real time data - almost 20 degrees behind
That is useful to know. It probably would be better if they offered a WebSocket connection but generally HTTP(S)-based APIs are going to have lag as the data gets sent & received by their servers, processed & added to their database, then you have to query the data... Some systems can make it "pretty" quick such that it does not matter much...
If their SMOKE or SIGNALS systems had an underlying webpage or API on the device itself so it could be queried directly in network it would probably be fast enough.
I think your checking into the calibration and accuracy is pretty awesome and I am sure users will appreciate the insights. I do not have any of these myself and definitely no need for them, but the detail is interesting to see!
Fireboard has lag. But, it is manageable. There really is no excuse for a 5 minute or more delay for something where it's only use is alerts for exceeding temperatures. As you could see from my photos, there was a 20 degree F difference between what the actual temperature was and what was displayed on the web interface. I have no words for this to be quite honest. (Other than give me my money back.... which they did)
I had no idea the web app lag was so bad, that is very good info.
Fortunately for me, usually, I am usually using the dedicated Smoke remote readout, which responds tolerably fast. But I will keep this lag time in mind when I use the web app. Yuck.
It's only for the ones that read TC's if you go back up and read the e-mail traffic they sent me. That is baffling to me. The sensors should have nothing to do with how it updates on the web - Source of information: Working with Data Acquisition units that handle 0-5V inputs, Resistance inputs, and Thermocouple modules simultaneously with no difference in how often they update based on the input.
Once the input is converted to digital, there should be only be lag based on the update interval, so at 30 second itervals, that should be the worst lag you would see.
They indicated that the signals and smoke devices were faster (but, they did not say current to what the device display was)
