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In Reply to: Wi-Fi Smoker Control / Monitoring - Who's Doin It? posted by WildBlue on February 20, 2008 at 13:47:49:
I will be once I get the unit and smoker. Should be pretty simple to set up. Once again, I'm in IT as well so networking/computer/programming is what I do for a living.
I would add that there are several people who have actually developed Java applications that talk to Blackberries and periodically inform them of their pit status. At some point I hope to contribute to their source code or write my own for windows PDA's. You won't be able to do that with the Guru for any time in the future that I can tell.
When you think about what the Guru device actually does it's pretty simple - 2 thermistors are used to sense temperature and control a few LEDs, alarms and 2 potentiometers are used to set the meat and pit settings. A little algorithm is used to take the temperatures into consideration and control the amps going to the fan. My unit, the competitor, blasts on/off at full speed to adjust the temp and thus doesn't "learn" how to adapt to my smoker. I Think the newer stoker units do and they can do this because there's a NVRAM chip on the device to store settings.
You could basically create the Guru device from a simple PC digital/analog input serial card, 2 probes, a PC fan and a chrome muffler tailpipe plus some software you'd have to write to support your own temp control. I looked at it and I think your talking $175 for just hardware and your time for development of software.
However, the Stoker costs the same, can control multiple pits, is internet or ethernet ready and will soon feature an API you can program against. Personally, I can't understand why you'd want to use a Guru over a stoker. In 2 or 3 years they will be obsolete.
Hey, I'll post mine for sale once I get my double pit stoker in place.
-rob
-rob