The ECPin/Maverick
Wireless Meat Thermometer

Thermometer Accuracy
The ECPin/Stake probes contain one temperature sensor down near the tip of the probe. Since, unlike the MEATER probes, the ECPin app allows you to set the temperature at which to alarm for a high temperature, we were able to test the accuracy of the probes using the good old boiling water technique. Knowing our elevation and the current barometric pressue, we were able to use our Boiling Point Calculator to determine that at the time of the test, the boiling point of water was 211.4°F. Here's how the probes performed. As you can see, all the probes produced readings that were within the advertised 1.8°F error:

Actual Boiling Point	211.4°F
ECPin Black Probe	210°F
ECPin White Probe	212°F
Maverick Probe	210°F

Charging Times and "Battery" Life
Well, of course there is no battery in these probes. As we have explained, they are powered by supercapacitors. So, how long do they take to charge and how long do they last? Let's take a look.

First, how long does it take to charge these probes? They are advertised as charging in two minutes. Compare this to two hours or more to charge probes that have a lithium battery in them. Can they really charge that fast? Well, to charge a probe, you just insert it into the charger, connect the mini-USB cable to a USB outlet and then watch the flashing LED. It will flash while the probe is charging and turn off when the probe is done charging. Here's how they did:

ECPin Black Probe	35 seconds
ECPin White Probe	39 seconds
Maverick Probe	39 seconds

Next, how long will the supercapacitor last when you are using a probe? The web site for the ECPin probes says 6 hours in standby and 4 hours in use. Actually, it is a bit more complicated than that. It depends on whether you are using the probes at lower or higher temperatures. Per the manufacturer, the supercapacitor will discharge faster at 212°F than at 154°F. In order to demonstrate this, we ran all of our probes at room temperature and then popped them into an oven that ran between 127 and 210°F. Here are the results we obtained:

	Probes at Room Temperature	Probes at Cooking Temperature
ECPin Black Probe	6:30	2:53
ECPin White Probe	7:15	3:25
Maverick Probe	6:46	2:51

So as you can see, early in a cook the supercapacitor discharges at a rate that would get you over 6 hours of runtime, but as the probes heat up, the supercapacitor discharges at a higher rate that would only get you about 3 hours of operation. Thus, over the course of an entire cook, you should expect to get somewhere around 4 hours, as ECTherm advertises.

However, this obviously poses a problem for overnight cooking. Once your meat gets up to around 150°F, you can only expect 3 hours of operation which means opening the cooker every 3 hours to recharge your probe.

Connectivity Methods
Both the ECPin probes and the Maverick Stake probes can connect to the app using Bluetooth:

Bluetooth: We'll assume everyone knows what Bluetooth wireless communication is. The ECPin and Maverick probes use Bluetooth LE, also known as Bluetooth Smart. Compared to Classic Bluetooth, Bluetooth Smart is intended to provide considerably reduced power consumption and cost while maintaining a similar communication range. Advantages include:

• Low power requirements, operating for "months or years" on a button cell
• Small size and low cost
• Compatibility with a large installed base of mobile phones, tablets and computers

In addition, the ECPin and Maverick probes use Beacon technology which allows them to establish a connection with a smart device without the user having to go through the pairing process. All communications with the ECPin and Maverick Probes begin with Bluetooth. You must connect a smart device running the ECPin or Maverick app to the probe via Bluetooth, and this smart device must remain within Bluetooth range of the probe in order to access the data from the probe.

WiFi: This method allows one smart device to connect to the ECPin probe via Bluetooth, but then allows a second smart device to connect to the first via a local wifi network. Both smart devices must be running the ECPin app and must be connected to the same local wifi network.

Hotspot: This method also allows one smart device to connect to the ECPin probe via Bluetooth, but instead of using your local network to connect to the second smart device, you activate your hotspot on your smart device, and then connect the second smart device to the hotspot. Thus, you can monitor the ECPin probe remotely on the second smart device as long as it remains connected to your first device's hotspot. Again, the ECPin app must be running on both smart devices.

Tap the WiFi symbol at the bottom of any screen to be taken to the ECPin Connect screen. Here you can view your two options to connect your two smart devices, WiFi or Hotspot. Tap the ">" at the top of the screen to continue.

On the smart device that you will leave near your cooker, select the Repeater option.

On the smart device you will keep with you, select the Monitor option.

You should see the monitor smart device briefly display a message about scanning for the repeater, and then you should be able to use your smart device designated as the monitor to monitor the probe temperatures from beyond Bluetooth distances. You can tell which smart device is repeater and which is the monitor by looking at the probe data on the home screen. You will see a WiFi icon next to the radio beacon icon, and it will either have a small "R" for repeater, or "M" for monitor next to it.

The WiFi icon with an "R" beside it indicates this smart device is the repeater.

The WiFi icon with an "M" beside it indicates this smart device is the monitor.

So, once you have this set up, you can use the second smart device to monitor your probes as long as it stays within range of your local WiFi network or the first smart device's hot spot. Also, we should point out that you should set up your cooks on the smart device that you have designated as the monitor.

Once you are monitoring remotely, if you kill the app on either the repeater or the monitor, when you start the app back up, you will need to go into the WiFi setup again and select the appropriate role for your smart device. In addition, if you switch to another app on the monitor smart device, when you come back to the ECPin app, you may get a popup saying "Disconnected from ECPIN repeater" asking you to reconnect. Just tap "Re-connect" and you will be monitoring again. This may also happen if you switch to another app on the repeater smart device. The monitor smart device may give you the disconnect popup. You'll need to make the ECPin app active on the repeater and then you can reconnect on the monitor.

Problems We Encountered
The only problem that we encountered, if you can call it that, was occasionally we received a disconnect message when clearly the probe and smart device were only 2 feet away from each other. However, this only happened a few times and it always resolved itself within a few seconds.

Notes On Using The Probes

• The app on your smart device must be in foreground in order for the probes to connect and for the app to monitor the cook. If you move to another app, you may get an alarm about the probe disconnecting.
• If you kill the app, you will lose your current cook. When you reopen the app, you will need to set up a new cook.
• The maximum food temperature alarm is configurable only on the ECPin app. For the Maverick Stake app it is hardcoded to 176°F
• Setting up a custom cook on the ECPin app is done by selecting "Custom Cook" when you display the list of types of meat. Then you can manually enter the target temperature.
• Setting up a custom cook on the Maverick app is not as obvious, although instructions are found in the tutorial. When you want to set up your cook, instead of selecting a type of meat, tap and drag the white ball that you will find on the inner arc of the temperature arc. It is a bit titchy, but with perserverance you should be able to set the target temperature as you see fit.

Compared to the MEATER and MeatStick Probes
In the following table we compare some of the more important features of the ECPin, Stake, MEATER and MeatStick probes. We included the original MEATER probe as it most closely aligns with the ECPin/Stake probes. Likewise, we include the "All New" MeatStick probe which is the current version of the MeatStick probe that lines up with the ECPin/Stake probes.

	ECPin	Stake	MEATER	MeatStick
Communication Type	Bluetooth	Bluetooth	Bluetooth	Bluetooth
Maximum Line of Sight Range	140 feet	140 feet	285 feet	245 feet
Temperature Sensors	Meat only	Meat only	Meat and ambient	Meat and ambient
Meat Done Prediction	Coming Soon	No	Yes	Yes
Resting Time Prediction	Coming Soon	No	Yes	Yes
Meat Probe Limit	212°F/100°C	212°F/100°C	212°F/100°C	212°F/100°C
Probe Temperature Limit	572°F/300°C	572°F/300°C	527°F/275°C	572°F/300°C
Probe Water Proof?	Yes	Yes	Water resistant	Yes
Probe Dishwasher Safe?	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Probe sous vide safe?	Yes	Yes	If not submerged	Yes
Probe Recharge Cycles	1,000,000	1,000,000	1,000	1,000
Meat Probe Accuracy	1.8°F/1.0°C	1.8°F/1.0°C	Not Stated	Not Stated
Probe Power Source	Supercapacitor	Supercapacitor	Lithium Battery	Lithium Battery
Probe Operating Time	4 to 7 hours	4 to 7 hours	24-72 hours	24 hours
Probe Charging Time	< 40 seconds	< 40 seconds	2+ hours	4 hours
Charger Power	micro-USB cable	micro-USB cable	AAA battery	2-AAA batteries
Charger Construction	Plastic	Plastic	Bamboo block	Plastic
WiFi Option	Yes, with second phone	No	Yes, with second phone	Yes, with second phone
Max Probes Supported	8	8	4 with one phone, 8 with two	8
Types of Meat Supported	5 (Beef, Pork, Lamb, Poultry, Fish)	6 (Beef, Veal, Lamb, Pork, Chicken, Turkey)	5 (Beef, Pork, Lamb, Poultry, Fish)	5 (Beef, Pork, Lamb, Poultry, Fish)
Cuts of Meat Supported	24	30	32	38
Custom Cook	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Price	$69.95 Europe and Asia	$79.95 US and Canada	$69.95	$69.95

Availability
The ECPin probe is available outside of the US and Canada at the ECTherm web site. You can buy either a single probe with charger or a dual pack that contains two probes and a charger.

For customers in the US and Canada, you can purchase the Maverick Stake at their web site and on Amazon:

Conclusions
When looking at any Bluetooth truly wireless meat thermometer, you have to compare it to the obvious alternatives, MEATER and MeatStick. While the ECPin and Maverick Stake probes are missing some useful functions (however, see the next paragraph) and have a relatively short operating time on a single charge, you have to consider that they have something that no other probes have, virtually instant charging. They are essentially always ready to go with just a one minute charge time. If you want a simple meat thermometer that doesn't require hours of charging, and you can do with a four hour run time, you should take a look at these probes.

As for the missing features, ECTherm is about to release the next version of their ECPin Pro app. This next update addresses some of these missing functions and adds a few additional functions.

• Inherit cooking task from a low battery probe + Pause cooking task. This function is intended to make longer cooks a bit easier. If your probe is running low after four hours, you can swap it for another freshly charged probe. In the app, you can in effect, tell the app to continue the cook using the second probe instead of the first. In this way, you keep all the cooking data from both probes intact as if you were only using a single probe. You can also pause a cook if necessary.
• Upgrades to the notification settings
• Cook time estimate
• Remain time reminder
• The iOS version will have support for Apple's VoiceOver screen reader to assist with visual impairment.

Contact Information

ECTherm by Manford Development Limited Flat 1001, Floor 10, Building 19W Hong Kong Science Park Shatin, N.T. Hong Kong Email: enquiry@ecthrm.com Web: www.ectherm.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ectherm/

Maverick Industries Edison, New Jersey 08837 Customer Support Phone: 800-526-0954 General Phone: 732-417-9666 Fax: 732-417-9673 Email: help@maverickthermometers.com Web: www.maverickthermometers.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/MaverickThermometers

 

You can make donations to The Naked Whiz Website using Bitcoin! Scan the QR code at left or copy and paste our wallet ID: 1Bt4vjU9PUQNVvEZZq6ik6jWYr6nr4rJRp