Hotloop Digital Oven Thermometer with Backlight - High Temp Resistant up to 572°F/300°C - Perfect for Baking, Grilling, BBQ & Kitchen Cooking

I bought two of these. One for my higher end AGA Pro oven at home and one for a Jenn Air range at a weekend cabin. The Jenn Air is generally considered a good quality unit, but not on par with the AGA Pro. Having the hotloops in two in different ovens has provided me with a good insight into these units. After about a month of use in both ovens the units appear to be working well. That said, these are are cheap thermometers - not high end by any means - so I am sure there are some valid issues with people getting lemons, but personally I think that some of the negative reviews reflect more on the user's ovens or unrealistic user expectations than the thermometers themselves.Use:To install I tied the cable with a loose single overhand knot to the middle rack in both ovens so the sensor hangs in the air space about where the food cooks. In this application, the sensor reads the air temp inside the oven and not the temp of the surfaces inside the oven. The door closes easily over the thin but insulated wires and the unit is placed on the counter next to the stove. These have an on/off switch, but I have just left these on. They have been running for over a month using a single battery. There is one review about these not being suitable as oven thermometers because they don't show the running average. That is true, but the item description does not say the units have this feature and personally I would rather know the actual current temp at all times.Accuracy:Some reviews have said these are not accurate based on what they see from their oven or based on readings with an analog thermometer...both of which are notoriously inaccurate. I have tested these with a high quality digital instant read thermometer that maxes out at 375 degrees. They showed comparable readings (+/- 5 degrees) up to 350 degrees. I have also tested this with a infrared thermometer "gun". The IR thermometer reads the temp of the oven surface not the air in the oven so the readings are not exactly the same but are comparable up to 450, which is the highest I have tested. Based on my tests these seem more than adequate for home cooking and baking.Real world use:The AGA Pro is a great oven but just has an analog temp setting dial with no temp read out. Using a standard analog oven thermometer we notice it was about 20 degrees hotter than the dial setting. I purchased the hotloop unit so I can more accurately know the air temp of the oven for baking. In the AGA Pro, once the oven comes to temperature it basically stays rock solid. There is very little air temperature variation between thermostat cycles once the oven is solidly preheated and the door stays closed. The story very is different in the Jenn Air. The Jenn Air has digital controls that let you set specific temps and also a digital read out that purports to show the oven temp. In use, the hotloop unit shows the same temp as the Jenn Air readout as it preheats -usually within a degree or two - but once the preheat cycle is done the oven beeps and the oven readout shows that the oven stays at the set point. The hotloop readout fluctuates around, quite a bit. I originally thought that I had one bad unit, but I switched them out and both behave the same in the different ovens, so I am confident the issue is with the ovens, not the thermometers.Because I bake in both ovens, I suspected there were some issues with the Jenn Air that the hotloop unit helped confirm. As an example, this weekend I put the oven on 200 to keep something warm. Once preheated, the oven beeped and showed a it was 200 degrees, but the hotpoint kept rising to about 255 degrees. Later I was making a roast and I had it set to 400 degrees convection. As the oven preheated, the hotloop and oven readouts tracked the same. As the oven reached the setpoint it beeped and showed a temp of 400 as the hotloop went up to 415. When I put in the roast, the oven continued to show 400 while the hotloop showed temps decreased (the air temp drops sharply when the door is open). The oven elements kicked back on when the hotloop read 340 and then only ever went back up to 385, although the oven display showed all the while a it was 400 degrees. Some of this may be because the thermostat in the oven is inside the metal casing, but I think the computer controlled Jenn Air is programed to lie to you about the temperature to make it appear more stable than it really is. The hotloop unit has helped to mitigate this problem and improved my baking with this particular oven.Summary:These are good units for the price. Expectations should be tempered given these are very simple and cheaply made units, but they do a good job showing the instantaneous temperature of the air inside the oven and are more than adequate for baking.Don’t waste your time or money. I bought this hoping to have a much more accurate reading on my oven than the typical little hanging oven thermometers. I suspected it was way off the first few times I used it, and finally checked it by putting the tip in boiling water - barely reached 30 degrees centigrade (100 degrees is the boiling point.)Works but cord gets in way of pan going in and out of oven...could be thicker or smoother coating.The cord is definitely not heat resistant so be careful when taking it out of the oven. Temperature was accurate. But as time went on the temperature fluctuated from 350 up to 378 degrees. I don't know why. This meant that I had to watch what was baking and had to take it out sooner than the recipe called for. But since this is the 3rd one I bought, I am not buying another.The first 2 were not digital and definitely weren't accurate. I had GE come in twice.Use this little gadget for smoking meats. Works very well. Just make sure you have yhe scale you want (F or C)Due to cooking temperature problems, replaced the temperature sensor in our Samsung oven and tried to determine if the fix was effective. Used the non-digital oven thermometers but they are approximations and slow to change temperature readings. This digital thermometer changes quickly and shows an accurate current temperature. Using this device saved me from buying the control panel module and proved the temperature accuracy with the new sensor saving $150 and the work involved with replacing it.Great item for my smokerI bought three of these to use in solar cookers. The cookers reach temperatures just below 400F so this seemed like a good choice. All three worked at first but eventually two of them would start to get flakey at cooking temperatures and might be off by 100 degrees and then bounce back to being accurate. One of them is still in use in an oven and is working fine. I have since repurposed the other two which are still accurate at lower temperatures. I also have replaced the battery with a 2 volt solar panel and these will be used on a solar water heating system and outdoor shower. When the power is interrupted they revert from F back to C which is a small drawback now that mine are solar powered.Easy to use. Does just what I wanted it to do - check my gas oven was heating to the correct temperatureUsed this thermometer 3 times so far. First time seems ok, second time started off way below temperature but seemed to correct itself. Now reads 45-48 degrees F at room temperature, only reads 350 Degrees with oven at 475 and is way off during preheat also. Will be returning this for a different product. Don’t waste your time and money on this one.I've had it for just over 2 months, it won't go about 320 F, then it drops approx 100 F at a blink of an eye! I know China crap has a shelf life of approx one yr, but this is ridiculous. Wasted money, not worth the plastic it's made from, and don't expect the company selling this garbage to provide any kind of refund, so chalk it up as a $35 loss.Dieses ist das zweite Thermometer von Hotloop.Um die Temperatur in unserem neuen Gasbackofen zu kontrollieren, hatte ich zu meinen analogen Ofenthermometern ein digitales Thermometer von Hotloop gekauft. Zuerst hatte ich auch die gleichen Ergebnisse mit den Geräten. (kleine Abweichungen waren für mich normal) Nach kurzer Zeit aber spielte das digitale Messinstrument verrückt. Na ja, kann passieren dachte ich mir und schickte es als defekt retour. Ich bestellte das gleiche Thermometer nochmals und es tat 5 Monate seine Dienste zu meiner vollen Zufriedenheit. Danach zeigte es bei Zimmertemperatur (ca.22Grad) nur noch 10 Grad an, was mich stutzig machte und beim Backen wich es um ca. 30 Grad ab, gemessen mit den analogen Thermometern. Also das zweite Mal ins Klo gegriffen. Ein solches Instrument sollte meiner Meinung nach eigentlich länger halten, oder hatte ich einfach nur Pech?Funktionierte beim 1. einschalten und zeigte da scheinbar noch die richtige Temperatur an...aber bereits beim 2. Einsatz bzw am nächsten Tag funktionierte es bereits völlig falsch.Ofen auf 220°C eingestellt und das Thermometer zeigt mir nach 30 Minuten immer noch zwischen 100-150°C an obwohl mein Essen schon knusprig braun wurde *schmunzel* ...Ein- Ausschalten brachte auch nichts... ergo zurückgeschickt.