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The products contained in this review were purchased by The Naked Whiz. No considerations, financial or otherwise, were solicited from or given by Combustion, Inc.
Introduction
If you aren't familiar with the Combustion Predictive Thermometer, you may wish to read our
original review
before proceeding. In this review we will be covering only the new Combustion Range-Extending Booster
and improvements to the Combuation App, not the temperature probes themselves.
In addition to these hardware improvements, Combustion has released new firmware for the probes, the booster and the Display, as well as updating their App with some new very welcome features.
And finally, Combustion has created something called MeatNet™ that seamlessly extends the range of your Predictive Thermometer(s). We'll explain in more detail later. But for now, let's get started.
The Range-Extending Booster
First let's take a look at the Combustion Range-Extending Booster. It is quite similar to the original Combustion
charger. The visible differences lie in its slightly greater length and the presence of small button that also
contains an LED:
Bluetooth Range
The Bluetooth range of the Combustion Predictive Thermometer probe by itself was truly impressive.
While Combustion advertises a range of 10 feet (3m) unobstructed and 50 feet (15m) unobstructed,
we observed far greater range than that. When we tested the probe by itself, we placed the probe inside
a large Big Green Egg cooker, and then produced the following
diagram which shows the floorplan of our house and deck, and the location of the cooker.
For reference, the distance from the front of the house to the back of the deck is about 70 feet.
The Combustion probe was able to connect from anywhere inside the red lines:
As you can see, we were able to connect to the probe in almost the entire house. Up on the second floor, the results were about the same. And this was just with the probe. This performance matches or exceeds what we have observed with other probes using their Bluetooth® repeaters! In order to see what kind of range we could get with the Range-Extending Booster repeating the probe's signal to the App on our phone, we placed the probe inside our large Big Green Egg Cooker and the Range-Extending Booster inside our house about 25 feet from the probe. We then checked the connection with the App on our phone. We could connect anywhere inside the house and outside, even on the third floor!
A little later, we will tell you about MeatNet™ which will allow you to extend your Bluetooth range even further.
Use As A Charger
It should be obvious that if the Range-Extending Booster contains a Bluetooth repeater, it must also
contain a battery. But not only does this battery power the Bluetooth repeater, it can also charge/maintain
your probe. The Range-Extending Booster can fully charge your probe up to 8 times on a single charge. If your probe is
already fully charged, the Range-Extending Booster can keep it topped up and ready to use for up to 6 months.
The small LED/button will tell you the charging state. This is a bit tricky since the LED is used to convey the charging state of both the probe and the booster. If both the probe and the booster are fully charged, the LED will display green. If either one (or both) is charging, the LED will display amber.
MeatNet™
Once you update the firmware in all your Combustion devices, MeatNet™ will be magically enabled.
What is MeatNet™? It is an ad-hoc network created by all your devices.
It is a network that forms itself and doesn’t require any effort on your part to set up.
Once enabled, MeatNet™ seamlessly extends the range of your Predictive Thermometer(s).
Each Booster or Display will now automatically connect to the Bluetooth network that is
created and repeat signals from other linked Combustion tools.
Each of these linked devices creates a new broadcast location with a signal strength of about 330ft (100m) if unobstructed.
It's theoretically possible to "daisy-chain" multiple nodes together to get really absurd range.
And of course, your Combustion probes also automatically connect to this network.
So as an example, suppose you place a Combustion Display (which also contain a Bluetooth repeater) near your cooker. You can then march off and place a Range-Extending Booster over 300 feet away. You will now be able to connect to the probe with your smart device from well over 600 feet away. March off and place another Range-Extending Booster another 300 feet away from the first booster and you now have Bluetooth connectivity approaching 1000 feet.
Setting Up The Range Extender
Setting up the Combustion Range-Extender is pretty simple:
Updating The Firmware
Occasionally the firmware in your booster may have to be updated. In fact, if you order the Combustion
Range-Extending Booster at the time of this writing, the booster as shipped needs a firmware update
to enable MeatNet™ and other features. You can check to see
if an update is required with the App.
 Step 1. Start up the App and tap on the flame icon. |
 Step 2. On the next screen, tap on "Update Devices". |
 Step 3. The next screen lists all the types of devices and the latest firmware level for each. |
 Step 4. Turn on your booster and as soon as the App recognizes it, you will see it appear on the screen. If it requires new firmware, it will say "Update". Tap on "Update". |
 Step 5. The update will begin with "Enabling DFU Mode". |
 Step 6. Next the update will start uploading to the booster. |
 Step 7. A progress bar will appear showing how much of the update has downloaded. |
 Step 8. Once the download has finished, the App will disconnect from the booster. |
 Step 9. The booster will reboot and reconnect to the App. |
 Step 10. After reconnecting, the App will read the booster's firmware level to ensure it updated correctly. |
 Step 11. After the App verifies the booster has the correct level, it will display "Up to date". |
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