This smart temperature probe will take all the guesswork out of BBQing — it tells you exactly how long to cook and rest your meat for, for perfectly juicy, charred and tender results

Every year, the moment summer arrives and the first wafts of BBQ start to drift on the air, someone I know will feel compelled to tell me about their Meater. Never heard of it? It’s essentially a smart probe for cooking joints of meat, with a companion app that walks you though the whole process, for perfectly juicy, charred and tender results every single time. You poke one into your piece of meat, tell the app what kind of meat it is, and it’ll ping you when it’s time to take it off the BBQ, and when it’s finished resting.

They’ll tell me how reliable it is, how easy it is to use, and how hassle-free it makes the whole process. I haven’t yet taken the plunge, but I’ve just spotted the full range heavily discounted on Amazon for Memorial Day, and I think it might be time to invest.

• View all Meater deals at Amazon

The cheapest options are the SE and Plus probes, and as far as I can tell, the main difference between them is that the Plus comes in a nice wooden case. Otherwise you’re getting the same two sensors, maximum temperature of up to 527°F and ± 0.9°F accuracy. However, I’m tempted to stump up the extra $15-ish, to go for the Pro version. This is Meater’s bestseller and it’s back down to its lowest price of the year — it’s very rare for it to drop this low. There’s a significant bump in specs compared to the Plus and SE — the Pro has six sensors and is accurate to ± 0.18°F.

For those who regularly cook larger cuts of meat or cater for big gatherings, there are three multi-probe sets to choose from, with varying specs — I’ve pulled all the key specs into a table below, to make it easier to compare the different options.