FireBoard Pulse Wireless Temperature Probe Reviewed and Rated

The FireBoard Pulse is the company’s entry into the wireless thermometer product category. It works in conjunction with either the FireBoard 2 or the Spark to display both the food and the “ambient” temperature. You can also connect to the probe directly using a smartphone, but the range might be limited.

The Pulse has two sensors: one in the tip and one in the handle. With a single sensor in the tip, placement of the probe is critical to accurately measure the temperature of the core of the food. This is important because we want to measure the coolest part of the meat to determine doneness. The tip probe is useable to 212°F (100°C) and the handle is able to withstand 662°F (350°C).

Like other wireless probes, the pointed end must be inserted to or beyond a line etched on the shaft that is 2.75″ (7 cm) from the tip. From the etched line to the handle is 1.6″ (4 cm), so the user has some latitude to place the sensor in the tip close to the center of the food.

There is a second sensor in the handle that measures the temperature outside the food. One might be tempted to think that the temperature measured by the handle is the temperature inside the cooker. Unfortunately, this is not true. A large piece of cold food creates its own micro-climate near its surface. One might see a 50° difference between the oven temp and the handle temp. This issue affects all probes of this type.

The Pulse comes with a clever cradle that allows the stacking of up to eight probes/chargers, held together by magnets. Plugging a USB-C cable into any one of the stacked units will charge them all. The cradle has an internal rechargeable battery of its own that will recharge a depleted probe without having to attach the USB cable. The number of charges from the cradle’s battery will depend on how discharged the probe is when inserted into the cradle.

Range with wireless thermometers is often a problem. Most connect to the outside world using Bluetooth which operates in the part of the radio frequency spectrum around 2.4GHz. Unfortunately, the metal enclosure of a smoker attenuates this frequency significantly, causing weak signals that are difficult to receive without a repeater, like a FireBoard 2 or a Spark, nearby to amplify and retransmit the signal. The Pulse can operate in the Bluetooth spectrum and connect directly with a Spark or phone or, using a FireBoard 2 and an accessory antenna, communicate using a 900MHz signal that suffers less attenuation. The FireBoard 2 or the Spark can relay the temperature data to the cloud using your Wi-Fi router. This allows monitoring your cook using a browser or an app anywhere an internet connection is available.

Users are understandably concerned about the duration of the charge in the probe. Our measurements revealed that the probe would operate for 43 hours without recharging, long enough to monitor just about any cook. We used the FireBoard 2 and the accessory antenna, allowing use of the lower frequency for communications. I didn’t test the duration of the Bluetooth connection.

I tested the Pulse for accuracy at three temperatures: 135°F, 160°F, and 205°F. The results: 134.6°, 159.6°F, and 204.6°F, all excellent results.

The FireBoard app and its similar web presence do not yet offer predictions of when a cook will be completed, although they do have a tool in the app, the “Analyze” feature, to help make projections. This allows the user to pull up a previously stored cook and overlay it on the current cook’s graph. By adjusting the temporal and temperature alignment, the user can make an estimate of the time remaining until the food is done. Accurately predicting when food will be ready is a complicated problem that no one has fully solved, especially when the profile includes the dreaded “stall.” My guess is that FireBoard is withholding this capability until it is satisfied that it can offer a useful prediction. Stay tuned. Nevertheless, I like FireBoard’s approach to presenting temperature information in a graphical form that is useful. I usually monitor my cooks using the website as opposed to the smartphone app, but the same info, minus the Analyze feature, is available on both.

FireBoard has done a great job integrating their hardware so it works together. I routinely use the FireBoard 2, the Spark, and now the Pulse to monitor both my cooking and the operation of other products from the company. It just works well.