How to Turn Your Weber and Kamado Joe into Smart Grills

Because each part is attached without wires, the whole package is easy to change. ChefsTemp announces bundles of Primo grills, any model of Kamado Joe, Big Green Egg, Akorn, Vision, Old Country Smoker, and Weber Smokey Mountain. If you’re willing to drill a hole or two, you can install ProTemp in any old kettle.

But what I had to play with is the big red egg Kamado Joe ceramic grill, known for building heat slowly and holding that heat for a long time. I don’t use ceramics very often, so it turns out that I don’t heat them very well. I was underestimating how good Joe would be at keeping warm, so I let the temperature get too high. ProTemp helped me cook good ribs.

The ProTemp S1 itself looks like a thermometer with a digital readout. Because this is what it is. Remove the original thermometer from the Kamado Joe and wipe it in ProTemp. This is the standard installation I had to do. Match this with a ChefsTemp probe ($120) to provide monitoring with the help of the animal program and the temperature. Add it ChefsTemp’s Breezo Fan ($80)which was released in 2025, and you can control the temperature accordingly.

Beyond this, the fan is installed in the basement with a small metal switch. Voila, physical installation is done. But unlike the Venom, the ChefsTemp kit requires at least four devices to be fully powered, and both are up to Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and work together: a digital controller, a fan, a phone, and a meat probe.

This may be longer if your signal is as weak as mine: You may lose one part or the other. And unfortunately, it’s not easy to switch back and forth between Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. To switch to Bluetooth, I had to reset the entire setup, then start over. So make sure you have a strong 2.4 GHz signal where you want to use the grill. To test this, you may need separate the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands on your router and test the range using your phone.

When you have the right signal, Breezo and ProTemp automatically and reliably match. The probes can be very strong, and you have to mark yourself with a pen to separate them. (Coloring would be nice!)

The ChefsTemp program is very successful if you want it to be: Choose your meat and its thickness or weight, and the program will monitor the device and give guidance on the cooking times – and the expected time until the meat reaches the desired level. I tried this on a slow cooked ribeye and got the best results at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. For the ribs, this worked even when I turned the heat up too high.

That was the biggest benefit of using this system, especially on a new grill that I wasn’t used to. Even after I burned the heat, I could take action because I could see that the heat was still going on—I could still judge whether the animal was being treated by looking at the way it was being probed. I never had to sacrifice half the ribs that turned out to be jerky.