Why your smartphone will be the next must-have grill accessory

Forget a spatula or tongs: the most-needed accessory for your next barbecue grill could be your phone.

Some of the biggest manufacturers of grills and outdoor cooking appliances like Weber and Traeger are making large investments into technology, emphasizing connected devices that try to make grilling easier and more enjoyable to cooks of all skill levels.

The digital push aims to take advantage of multiple trendlines hitting the grilling industry at the same time.

At-home barbecuing and grilling saw a massive uptick amid the pandemic as more people stayed home and cooked as opposed to dining out. More than $1.8 billion worth of grills, smokers, grill accessories, fuel, and stoves and accessories were sold between March and May in the U.S., a 5% increase compared to 2020, according to NPD.

Grilling more is leading some consumers to look beyond basic charcoal or propane grills towards more advanced products, such as smokers, pizza ovens, and flat-top griddles. There has also been an influx of new at-home grillers as people have looked to spend more time outside or moved away from cities where grilling space may have been limited.

Companies like Weber and Traeger have subsequently looked to push grill innovations to hit both the top and bottom of the market.

One of Weber’s most recent technological developments has been its Weber Connect Grilling Hub, which was selected as the best connected-home product at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show. The wireless hub has temperature probes that you push into whatever you’re cooking on the grill, connecting that data to an app on your phone that provides step-by-step directions and notifications for things like when meat needs to be flipped or is done.

“Think of it as Waze for navigating your grill cook,” Weber CEO Chris Scherzinger said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” earlier this month. “It’s a cloud-based technology platform with cooking algorithms built on Weber’s 70 years of grilling experience — it goes down to your phone, guides your cook on your grill, controls your grill, gets you perfect results every time. It’s basically a transformed, game-changing type of grill experience.”

Scherzinger also hinted at other ways technology could be integrated into Weber’s grills, such as monitoring the propane tank. A new line of grills expected to be unveiled later this year will actively gauge how much fuel is left in the tank, sending an alert when it is getting low and even potentially ordering a refill automatically.

“You can have a whole new business model now for Weber driving subscriptions, consumer engagement in between grilling experiences, all kinds of new ways that we can take this category,” he said.

The Weber Connect hub retails at $130 and is also included in the company’s line of smart grills, which retail between $849 and $1,349. Weber said it…