Today, Combustion announced that they have made a new physics-based prediction engine available for the Combustion smart thermometer.
According to the company, the prediction algorithm in this new over-the-air software upgrade, which they are calling the “new physics engine phase 1,” differs from the previous prediction algorithms in that it incorporates the ability to build a full simulation of the food in software. While the past model looked at the change in temperature and pacing of that change to predict when the food will be done, the new system will begin to factor in data around water migration, evaporation of moisture, and other factors interpreted from the eight sensors in the probe. From there, Combustion says they will be able to factor in temperature stagnation in large cuts of meat during BBQ (known as “stall”) and carry over.
The company’s announcements said that during phase 1 of the rollout, the new physics predictive model will run during the first 30% of the cook and then “switch over to the original predictive engine.” This is because Combustion expects “the new engine to make some mistakes and that early predictions may not always be stable.”
The announcement about the new update, free to existing Combustion thermometer owners, claims it “isn’t just a tweak to the existing algorithm, it’s the first step toward a new kind of cooking math.” I used the Combustion this past Thanksgiving and look forward to trying out the new features.
When Combustion launched its multisensor probe last year, it was a wake-up call for the existing smart thermometer market, which had developed mainly around single-sensor connected solutions. Since then, Meater has come out with the Meater 2 Plus, which has five internal sensors and an ambient temperature sensor, and other companies are likely developing multisensor versions of their thermometers. Combustion’s push to upgrade its software to create new capabilities is part of the company’s effort to stay ahead of the market as others look to adapt their hardware.
Chris Young, the CEO of Combustion, dropped into Dave Arnold’s Cooking Issues to talk about the new update and the broader vision for the thermometer, which includes making it open for other developers. Young says that the product has an open API, and they “have a lot of people creating cool stuff with” the thermometer.” You can listen to the interview portion where Young talks to Arnold about the thermometer updates in the embed below.
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