Everdure by Heston Blumenthal

Worst app ever. The smoker/cooker should be $300 not $2500. It’s not great. Don’t buy even a cheap used one. Buy the big green egg or something else.

Reliably stay connected to the 4k (Bluetooth alway loses its connection and you have to restart to reconnect). And give me the ability to show the temp of the 4 probes with 1 to 2 click. Having just purchased this, I'm strongly considering returning my 4K because this app is so bad.

I will restrict this review to the app itself (though I own both the Everdure 4K and Hub, and have strong opinions about both). All I need or want this app to do is to let me know what temperature my smoker is running at and the various probes I am using. Two design problems prevent me from doing this: 1. Despite the fact that the Everdure 4K comes with an attachment designed to enable users to use one of the four probes to measure the temp at grill level (as opposed to in the roof of the smoker), the app requires you to set a “Doneness” temp as if it is measuring meat temp. Which brings me to my second gripe.... 2. In order to use the probes, users must select a recipe and set a “Doneness” temp within a certain range. For Beef cooked “low and slow” (aka BBQ), that range is fixed between 122 and 167F. Do these engineers (or, gasp, Heston) know nothing about BBQ?! A brisket for example is not finished until 200-203F. So I can’t use the app to measure temp once I’v wrapped my brisket and gotten past the stall at ~160-165F. Now i’m stuck going outside every five mins and manually scrolling through the probes on the front pf the 4K. Ughhh...

Second time I used the app it was clear it was designed to promote the brand rather than support the process of cooking. On opening the app all probes and a pair button should be present on the first screen. They are not. Instead these most important features are layers deep on separate screens with probes not even easily accessible unless a target temperature is set. Having attempted to use the app now many many times I am sick of the unnecessary splash screen, sick of the many swipes and taps to get to any feature and sick of the need to repeat the multi swipe, multi tap process of reconnecting any time the app loses connection (which is often). Developers. I rarely want a guided cook. With the exception of charcoal, I am never likely to shop through the app and will definitely not use it to evaluate a new Everdure barbecue. I am also uninterested in a big screen with two ‘social’ buttons. News Feed is potentially useful (contains recipes, not news ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) , but it seems abandoned with only four items and a title that compelled me to avoid it until today. Please just provide a simple option to set a target temperature from the first screen and to receive notifications when any probes reaches that target.

After using the app a few times most people would want a BASIC TEMPERATURE DISPLAY as a main menu item. After pairing display probes and internal temperature (in both C and F). And display CONNECTED whenever it is connected.

Love the 4K but the app at the time was pants. Just started a low and slow brisket and too lazy to get out of my chair to check the temp. So loaded the app and found it had been upgraded to V3. Much more useful and now delivers on its promise.