Barbeque brand Weber and June, maker of the June smart oven, today introduced the Weber Connect Smart Grilling Hub, a connected device that allows users to bring smart functionality to the grill they already have.
The Hub is a small device that sits outside any grill. There are four inputs on the Hub which you can use for food probes and to monitor the internal temperature of what you’re cooking. There’s also an external thermometer to measure the ambient cooking temperature inside the grill.
The Hub wirelessly displays these readings and communicates them back to the Weber Connect mobile app, powered by the June OS, which provides guidance on grill set up, when to flip food and when to take it off the grill.
This is the second public product collaboration between Weber and June. Back in November the two companies announced the SmokeFire connected wood pellet grill that also uses the Weber Connect app to guide your grilling. The Smokefire costs roughly a thousand bucks and ships early this year.
If it works as advertised, the Weber Smart Grilling Hub will be able to turn your existing grill into a smart one for $130 when it comes out in “early 2020.” While that’s less expensive than a Smokefire grill, the Hub won’t be able to do all the things the Smokefire does, like automatically adjusting the temperature or keeping itself at a precise temperature.
I’ve been using the Traeger WiFi connected Pro pellet grill over the holidays and I can say firsthand that having the ability to monitor and control the grill remotely from a phone is a game-changer for novice grillers like myself. The one thing lacking in the Traeger, however, is the app design, which can be a bit clunky. As a happy June Oven owner, I’m excited to see what kind of design sensibilities June will bring to Weber’s grilling experience.
