Side by Side Comparison of: Masterbuilt

Excellent and easy to use smoker... this is my first go round... I made the right choice. I wish the Bluetooth had a further reach, but, other than that minimal complaints.

So far so great! Just got for my husband, only used once to smoke a whole chicken. Worked perfectly, no issue with the Bluetooth set up either. He has an iPhone and downloaded the app and used it like a remote, not issue with being too far away at all. I am guessing that if people using the app as a remote just don't have great service or are in a bad spot the Bluetooth probably doesn't work well just like any other app etc when you are in a bad spot/coverage. We love it...so far!!

2 briskets and 3 bacon slabs later, i still love it

Well, we have eaten nothing but meat in these ten days after Christmas since we gave this to the Daddy in our house. He is quite happy. The mommy likes that you can make 4 chickens at once and eat some, then freeze the rest to use in recipes. I don't know how it all works, but I know the white meat ends up as moist at the dark meat - magic! Took some time to put together, but oh what fun to just check the temperature of your hen on your cell phone... this has 'guy' written all over it.

After reading reviews on a lot of electric smokers, we chose this one. I assembled it myself - 68 yr old woman - so you know it had to be easy!!! The handle and wheels are a great plus in moving this around. We used it for Thanksgiving - had to cut the 14 lb turkey in half to fit comfortably. The digital display is great. We used the built in probe but did not sync it to Bluetooth - reading the temp on the outside display was fine. Adding wood chips was easy. It cooked the turkey a lot quicker than I anticipated. We also smoked a brisket a few days later and again it cooked it quicker than expected. So you probably have to use it a few times to make adjustments to cooking time. All seals were tight and we did not have a lot of smoke "leakage". It was also very easy to clean. As to the size - if you plan to do lots of large pieces of meat you might want to choose a larger model. For us, this was a perfect size - easy to maneuver and does not take up a large amount of storage space. Would highly recommend this product.

I purchased this smoker after a considerable amount of research. If you have a budget under 500 hundred and want electric to be your source of heat, I can’t see any way you would do better than this unit. Of course you could just get the 40” Masterbuilt generation 1 smoker for less money and you’d have a fine smoker, but I’d advise you avoid the generation 2 version as there are several design flaws (see the amazing meat dot com forum for more info on this) Mastbuilt got it right with this new smoker (Gen 2.5) and I must admit the Bluetooth app is pretty cool with this thing. Granted, the range is not great, but when you’re paired with the app it’s neat to be able to monitor what’s going on with the smoker. Sure a maverick digital meat probe does the same thing, but the app does work well.One thing I will recommend that you purchase along with this smoker is a nifty little device called the A-MAZE-N-PELLET-SMOKER 5X8. It’s a stainless steel mesh tray designed to hold wood pellets, the same pellets used in expensive pellet smokers, to provide all day smoke without having to add wood chips every half hour. You simply fill the try, light one end of the pellets and is smolders for hours, producing perfect thin blue smoke. Place it on the bottom of the smoker next to the heating element and forget about needing wood chips. I tried it for the first time recently and it works flawless. This smoker, along with the pellet smoker tray, is the ultimate in set it and forget it smoking.I have an offset smoker and a 250 gallon rotisserie pig roaster. I love smoking meat almost as much as I love eating it, but sometimes I got things to do that do not allow me to babysit my offset all day for a 12 pound brisket at 225 but still want to eat me some brisket. This smoker makes that possible. No babysitting required.

Has been great so far, bluetooth is working great and very convenient, I love it. I did have to buy the cold smoke attachment. I could not get consistent smoke without it when operating the smoker below 160 degrees; the heating element wasn't on enough to keep the chips smoldering. But, that is because I am mostly smoking salmon. For chicken and beef, it worked great without the cold smoke attachment. Highly recommend.

This thing...well, it's pretty awesome. Firstly, I'll admit that I had a massive Brinkmann offset smoker years ago, but with as much as I used to be out of town for work, I got rid of it because I was never home enough to master it. This MES though - takes ALL of the guesswork out of it, well, for the most part, depending on your application.It is a nice 'set it and forget it' application - except that if you like smoke, you can't really forget it. The chip loader is small (1/2 cup per instructions), so you're running out of wood chips fairly often. While that has to be tended to, at least you don't have to mind the temperature. Being electric, it will automatically adjust itself.For long smokes, I use the A-Maze-N smoker maze and their pellets in this instead of wood chips. The taste is equivalent, but the smoke lasts much, much longer than traditional wood chips, and it throws out as much smoke as the wood chips. I the end, this just means extra convenience and less time hovering over the unit. Which you'll no longer have to do, considering the Bluetooth capability of the unit so you can see temperatures remotely.In the end, I'm only giving 4 stars because of the small size of the heating element and chip loader/chip tray. Granted I'm not an engineer, but I'd certainly like to think that the capacity could have been greatly expanded.

I works very well! You have to watch it because sometimes the temperature will go up higher than the setting, but as long as you don't leave ot alone for 30 minutes or an hour it works perfectly. The bluetooth works very well. It makes som heavy smoke with a small amount fo chips. I wood recommend it to my friends.

Works great but when I received it, it had a big dent in the door.

Bought this smoker about 10 days before Thanksgiving. I've never used a smoker of any kind, but decided I wanted to smoke a turkey for Thanksgiving. Since I was going into this as a 1st timer I wanted something easy to use.Setup was easy. You pretty much are attaching the legs and wheels and removing the 100s of zip ties that are installed in it for packing purposes.The Bluetooth app needs some work. It has nice features/functions if you actually get it working. The range is also very limited.The smoker itselfelf is very easy to use. I gave it a test run on the Sunday before and the bratwursts and burgers came out great. The turkey I ended up smoking was hands down the best Thanksgiving turkeys I've ever had.I have to give a star off for the Bluetooth app. It's good when it works but it seems if you exit the app and reopen it it has a hard time working correctly. This was on 2 different Android devices. I had to have a dedicated device I used only for that app to get it working right.The smoker I received was also damaged upon receipt. This isn't Masterbuilt's fault, but more likely Amazon/FedEx. There is a pretty deep dent right on the front door. It doesn't affect function of the smoker, but for something I just spent $250 on, I wasn't pleased. Its one of those things where it really isn't worth my time sending the thing back to get another unit that will probably be in the same or worse condition.

Efficient, sealed tight, uses less wood, but bluetooth has lost connection on me couple times...and I was no more than 20 feet away inside the house

One thing I can see is a major disappointment is the bluetooth seems to disconnect when I am not literally standing in front of the smoker. The whole reason I purchased this product was so I could be at my home office and monitor the meat without having to keep going to the smoker. I also didn't realize that the bluetooth meant you'd have to be home, but that's on me because I didn't think it through. A wi-fi type connection that you could access via a smart phone would be much more usefull. For example, if you a smoking something and turns out you need to leave the house, you could monitor meat temperature remotely. The other thing is the short power cord. The directions tell you to be a certain distance from any structure and that means you you need an appropriate extension cord unless you get lucky and your exterior outlet is directly behind the smoker. Even then, I'm not sure if it's long enough. Other than that, the unit seems fine, assembly was straight forward and quick. I'll be giving it a trial run this weekend.

It's really easy to use and it is aesthetically pleasing him it is easy to calibrate and set the temperature but it was but difficult to get a nice smoke inside even though we follow the instructions to the letter

The smoker is great but came dented. In order to replace that issue we were going to have to repackage and send the entire thing back...quite the hassle considering the size. And that we read others kept getting back dents so what's the point? Either way, Smoker works great - light on outside isn't great when door is closed. Bluetooth works. My husband is thrilled by it.

I puchased this model/make because of the bluetooth feature. I discovered today, after a month of seaching, that the control app is not available in my country (Venezuels) Nowhere in the writeup does it indicated that this is not universally avalable. Whilst the equipement works well. The absence of bluetooth is annoying as it was the deal maker. I would have bought elsewhere if I had known there was no bluetooyh app.

Blu tooth not strong enough

The smoker died about an hour and a half into the seasoning process and would not power back on. I returned it to Amazon and they sent me a new one. The second one works great, however, the bluetooth range is not near as far as I thought (maybe 15ft). I ended up buying a Maverick ET-733 which solves the problem of constantly trying to connect the bluetooth. So far I have smoked two briskets, two pork loins, and 16 chicken breasts. My recommendation would be to get this smoker without the bluetooth or glass and save yourself a little money.

Bought it a year and 4 months ago. First time I used it in over 6 months now -- I have used it a total of about 6 times -- and now it has the run-away temperature problem so many others have had. The meat it makes when it is working right is fantastic. Longevity of the smoker is questionable. Better watch your temperature. I set mine for 225 and the next thing I know it is at 300 degrees. Reset and then it happens again. Finished my brisquet wrapped in the oven instead of the smoker. OK, so.... what is broken? Does it need a new control panel or what? Aggravating for a $500 purchase.

The smoker worked great for awhile. We used it maybe a dozen times. Then it just quit. It would keep shutting itself off. When we looked online for a solution we found that quite a few other people also experienced this issue. The only way to fix it would be to replace several interior parts. My son's smoker ( also a Masterbuilt) lasted less than a year. Unless the company can fix this issue, we will not be buying another smoker from Masterbuilt.

I was really excited by the idea that I could have a smoker with auto temp control and a built in temp probe. While the auto temp control works well, the smoker has a very poor app. I can't set alarms when meat is at or near a specific temp which results in over cooked meat as you have to set another timer to remind you to check it.Another issue with the smoker is the inability to set it to over 275 to burn off anything leftover in the smoker. This means I spend significantly more time cleaning it than I did my old cheapo electric smoker. The smoker also has a light built outside the door, but not one built inside... Not very useful.Great idea for a smoker, very very poor implementation.

Product ships half assembled. If you don't mind finishing what the manufacturer should have done it is not a bad smoker. Plan on spending an hour building the base and installing about 24 screws. If unit was completely assembled I would rate it a 4.

witch it was bigger can not fit a pork but in it .

Got this as a Christmas gift. I've never owned a smoker before. Wasn't able to use it much during the winter, maybe 3 or 4 times. I've now had the smoker 6 months and this is about the 5th time I've used it. At first, I really liked it. It wasn't incredibly difficult to put together and use even considering I'd never used a smoker before. Seems to maintain cooking temp fairly well. However, now that I've used it a few times, I definitely wish I'd have purchased a different product - perhaps a Traeger grill or something similar.Problem #1: First thing I tried to smoke was a flat brisket. It barely fit on the rack. There's no way I'll get a packer brisket into this thing without cutting it apart. OK, my fault, I should have researched a bit more.Problem #2: As several other reviews have indicated, the bluetooth range on this thing is terrible. Honestly, I'm not sure why they bothered with it. I guess if it's the dead of winter and you can get near it, you wouldn't actually have to go outside to check temps. You certainly can't wander much more than 10 or 15 feet away from this thing if there is a wall between you and it.Problem #3: You need to load wood chips about every hour or so. If you're looking to smoke something overnight, plan on getting up every hour or so to load wood chips.Problem #4: Even though I've only used the smoker a few times, and it's been stored in a garage out of the elements, the meat temp probe is now not reading correctly. I smoked some chicken breast earlier this evening and about halfway through the smoke I started getting very odd readings on the meat probe. After the chicken was done, I started a pork butt. When I put the probe into the raw pork and checked to make sure it was reading correctly, the probe was already reading somewhere around 150 degrees. After about 3 hours, the meat probe says the internal temp of the 8 lb pork butt is 284 degrees, but the smoker cook temp is set at 225, . . . hmmmm??? Checked the warranty and there's only a 90 day warranty on the product. Will be calling Masterbuilt on Tuesday. Hopefully there's a little leeway on the warranty. Looks like some reviews indicate their customer service is pretty good. We'll find out. If it's not, I will definitely be updating this review.Updates on 5/26/17:It's been about a year and a half and I still use this smoker. Masterbuilt's customer service was very good. I called them, told them about the temp probe issue and they sent me another temp probe. Didn't take long to repair and it's been working fine since. I also did smoke a 10lb packer brisket, was a little snug, but it worked. Still kinda wish I'd have gotten a pellet grill though.

We bought this for the bluetooth feature, there is a known bug with the app that causes the smoker to attempt to raise to 899*F. This happened the first time we tried the app. Too much of a hassle to return so we use it without the bluetooth app.

The smoker works fine but the app doesn't work, so the remote control functionality that you pay a premium for is wasted. Buy something else.

Been using an Akorn Kamado with great success for years. Thought this would be a nice "shortcut" on long cooks. WRONG. Either the thermostat or the heating element, or BOTH, are defective. Confirmed with my RediChek sensor. Unfortunately, you only have 30 days to return and I am now out of range. Complete waste of money. Shame on you Amazon and MasterBuilt.

Electric failure after 3 months. Pages of reviews online at consumer websites warn of the same issue.Buy a pellet smoker instead.

I really wanted to like this but received 2 damaged units from Amazon via UPS. I finally gave up and purchased same model from Bass Pro Shops. One of the units was DOA and the other was severely damaged in shipping. As I learned from experience, I would recommend plugging the unit in before you assemble the rest :)

Bluetooth connectivity is a joke. If you are buying it for that convienwce save your self some money and buy something else. It rarely connects properly even if you are standing right next to it. I will adjust my score based on performace. For now based on build quality and fail of bluetooth it gets 1 star.