In 2022, Traeger began a major overhaul of its Wi-Fi-connected smart grill lineup. Only the most affordable Pro Series models have been left untouched as the redesign process that began with the Timberline made its way to the Ironwood this year. The company has debuted a host of changes along the way, all aimed at more efficient cooking, easier cleanup, customization and expanded smart features. A lot of what Traeger added to the Timberline trickled down to the Ironwood ($1,800), but this model is now significantly more expensive as a result and the best additions are still reserved for the most premium model.

A major redesign

When Traeger revealed its overhauled Timberline grills last year, one of the biggest updates was a new touchscreen display. The company has brought that to the new Ironwood grills too, replacing the single-knob navigation with a larger dial and a touchscreen. There are dedicated buttons for the full menu, timers, Keep Warm and Super Smoke to the left of the touchscreen, above the two wired food probe ports. While how you use the display to control the grill has changed, and the larger full-color panel is easier to see, I’m not convinced these grills needed a touchscreen. It doesn’t add a ton to the overall experience and a simpler update of just a larger, color display would’ve been more than enough and might kept prices down.

Another item Traeger borrowed from the Timberline is its so-called Pop-And-Lock (PAL) accessory rail. This is one new addition that I can get behind. It allows you to customize the grill based on your needs or what you’re cooking. PAL add-ons include a folding front shelf, storage bin, butcher paper/paper towel roll, tool hooks and a cup holder. These all snap onto a rail that goes almost the entire way around the grill and can be easily moved or removed as needed.

Inside, Traeger replaced the solid steel drip plate that directed grease to the catch can and the smaller fire pot shield. Now there are two larger pieces of metal that span the width of the grill. First, a diffuser spreads heat over the cooking surface and directs ash to the catch keg. A second piece above it still serves as a drip tray to channel grease to the same bin as the ash debris, but it now has holes around the outside to guide smoke and heat around the cooking surface. A dual-wall construction of the chamber itself provides better insulation, so temps remain consistent even in the colder months. Lastly, the auger was raised above the fire pot, so pellets drop down to burn. This should help with jams and lower the risk of auger and hopper fires. Once again, these changes debuted on the Timberline, but it’s nice to see them carry over to the mid-range Ironwood.

The key differences between the Ironwood and its pricier Timberline sibling are the vertical space inside the grill, the cart/leg design and the lack of an induction burner on the left side. Where the Timberline has two adjustable racks above the main cooking surface, the Ironwood only has one, and its maximum height is lower than that of the Timberline. Cooking grates on the Ironwood are also porcelain where they’re stainless steel on the more expensive model.

Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

Traeger nixed the four-legged design on the new Timberline in favor of a storage cart look that’s similar to Weber’s gas grills. The enclosed space is a nice addition that didn’t make it to the Ironwood, but the company did add an open shelf underneath that bolts to the legs. You can easily put a pellet bin and unused grates here when you’re not using them.

Lastly, the Ironwood doesn’t have the induction burner that the Timberline offers. It does have a larger side shelf than the previous iteration of the Ironwood, with a removable panel and an additional outlet on the back that suggests support for a burner add-on, but Traeger doesn’t currently sell one. I asked the company if it plans to do so in the future, but it declined to comment on unreleased products.

Upgraded smart grilling

Following its acquisition of Meater in 2021, Traeger made the company’s wireless meat probes standard equipment on the 2022 Timberline grills. Those devices get cumbersome cables out of the way, while sending internal food temperatures to the Traeger app for remote monitoring. The new Ironwood grill also supports the specially-designed Meater probes, but they don’t come in the box. Instead, you’ll have to make an additional $230 purchase to get a two-pack — which is more than if you bought two Meater Plus probes.

The problem is this two-pack only works with Traeger’s touchscreen grills and doesn’t sync with Meater’s app. This means you don’t get ambient temperature readings or estimated completion times — two valuable pieces of information. The Ironwood does come with two wired probes and the info from those is viewable inside of the Traeger app just like it has been on previous WiFIRE-equipped grills.

Photo by Billy Steele/Engadget

The company debuted a smart pellet sensor in 2019 and, while it would later ship grills with it included, it was a separate bolt-on component that needed to be installed. With the Timberline and Ironwood, this is now a fully-integrated piece of tech. Like before, the sensor monitors your pellet level and the app will alert you so you don’t have to keep watch. It’s not perfect — it can be tricked by tunneling when pellets are pulled in by the auger — but it’s good enough to keep tabs on the hopper while you’re relaxing.

Traeger has made the initial seasoning process almost entirely automatic. On previous grills, you had to manually set the temperature and a timer to burn off any residue from the manufacturing process, but now the WiFIRE controller handles all of that for you. You simply press a button and the grill keeps you posted on how much time is left. When you shut it down after cooking, either on the display or via the app, you get another countdown so you know the status of this 15-to-25-minute process that burns off excess pellets in the fire pot (time varies depending on your cooking temperature).

Cooking with the Ironwood

Changes aside, cooking with the Ironwood is as simple and straightforward as ever. Once you select your cooking temperature with the dial or send a recipe to the grill from the Traeger app, all you have to do is press the touchscreen to ignite it. The Ironwood reaches temperature in about 12 minutes, whether you're smoking at 225 degrees Fahrenheit or searing at 500. You’ll get a notification when the grill is preheated so you know it’s time to start cooking.

The Traeger app continues to be a wealth of information for cooks of all skill levels. The software houses over 1,000 recipes with adjustable ingredient lists based on how many people you plan to cook for. Step-by-step guidance is there, along with the ability to monitor grill and food temperatures remotely, and activate Super Smoke or Keep Warm modes as needed. The app still allows you to adjust grill temp, although there were a few times during my test I had to make that request twice. 99 percent of the time it works on the first attempt, but every once in a while the app needs a second prodding before sending the info to the Ironwood.

Over the course of a few months with the Ironwood, I cooked a range of foods at a variety of temperatures. Those include low-and-slow barbecue pork shoulders and turkey breasts, with hotter baking, roasting and searing thrown in too. I also cooked a few recipes where the temperature had to be adjusted during the cook, like the Over The Top Chili method that’s popular online these days. The Ironwood consistently produced great results, with Traeger’s trademark wood-fired flavors.

Traeger touts easier cleanup on the Ironwood thanks to the combination grease and ash keg underneath the grill. Part of that is also the heat diffuser that the company says directs ash to that bin. While it is an improvement that most of the waste goes into one container, you have to help some of the ash get there, and a significant amount of it makes its way on top of the diffuser. Some even ventures up onto the drip tray. You still need a shop vac to do a thorough cleaning every few cooking cycles and you’ll need an all-natural grill cleaner to get the grime off the drip pan, grates, sides and lid.

The competition

The pellet grill industry is increasingly crowded. Most hardware stores now carry a variety of them, most of which at least cover the basics and are available at a range of prices. Recteq’s Patio Legend 410 is under $600, for example. While it’s equipped with Wi-Fi connectivity, it’s more compact with only 410 square inches of grilling space. Pit Boss’ most premium models, the Navigator Series, are available for $999. The smaller Navigator 850 comes with wireless features but the larger Navigator 1150 requires an $150 upgrade for Wi-Fi. I’ve never tested a Pit Boss grill, so I can’t vouch for them, but they’re extremely popular and readily available at a host of big box stores in the US.

For more direct alternatives to the new Timberline, I’d consider the Recteq Backyard Beast 1000 or the Weber SmokeFire grills. The Backyard Beast ($1,099) is the largest “traditional” pellet grill in Recteq’s redesigned 2023 lineup introduced in late October. It offers slightly more cooking space at 1,014 square inches and includes new legs, improved wheels and a revamped controller. Weber’s SmokeFire smart grill debuted in 2020, and while the company has made some tweaks since, the same basic design remains. The main benefit is Weber Connect, the company’s grilling app that provides step-by-step guidance, including videos, and estimated completion times. The larger EX6 model has just over 1,000 square inches of grilling capacity and it’s currently available for $999.

When shopping for a pellet grill, remember that they all offer the same basic functionality. You’ll pay more for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to monitor things from your phone, but every model is capable of both low-and-slow smoking, high-heat searing and everything in between. There’s some variation in the max temperature, but the low end of that range is typically 500 degrees Farenheit. That’s plenty of heat for finishing off a steak. Where companies vary most is design and how common features are presented, so you’ll want to pay attention to things like how the metal components on the inside are arranged, how the grates fit in the cooking chamber and the grill controller.

Wrap-up

The 2023 Ironwood starts at $1,800 and the XL model that I tested is $2,000. That’s $500 more than the previous versions, the Ironwood 650 and Ironwood 885. In fact, it’s also more expensive than both of the first-generation Timberline grills, which were top-of-the-line options at the time. I appreciate a lot of the changes that Traeger made, and many of them are improvements, but they’re now significantly more expensive than the most high-end models from the competition. The 2019 Ironwood is a workhorse that still works well and I’d argue it’s a better grill for most people. Ironwood used to be a solid mid-range option in the company’s lineup, but now it’s just another pricey alternative.

The Sonos Era 100 wireless bookshelf speaker is back down to $199, matching prices found during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. That’s a discount of around $50, as the MSRP for this speaker is $250. If you squint, it’s almost like the holiday spending season never ended. (That’s because it mostly didn’t.)

This sale is for the both the black and white colorways, suiting those with diverging aesthetic preferences. The Sonos Era 100 boasts touch controls and voice controls, like many modern speakers. It’s wireless via Bluetooth or WiFi, which is handy, but also features a line in for connecting record players, home stereo systems and other audio devices that require an analog input.

We admired the Sonos Era 100 in our official review, calling out the excellent sound quality for the price, the simple yet attractive form factor and the built-in mics that allow for easy TruePlay tuning. For the uninitiated, TruePlay measures how sound reflects off of your walls and furniture to fine tune the speakers for optimal playback.

It has Alexa built-in, but recently lost support for Google Assistant, which is a bummer. You can, however, also access proprietary voice controls. The stereo separation is minimal, but that comes with the territory of trying to use a single speaker to complete the work of a matched stereo pair.

Sonos is also selling other speakers at Black Friday/Cyber Monday prices. The wireless soundbar Beam is down to $400 instead of $500 and the portable Roam speaker now costs $134 instead of $180. All of these speakers make for great stocking stuffers, except for the fact that they likely won’t actually fit in stockings.

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We made it to 200 episodes folks! This week, Cherlynn, Devindra, Producer Ben Ellman and Senior Writer Sam Rutherford dive into some of the biggest tech developments since we rebooted the podcast in 2019. Remember, that was a pre-pandemic, pre-generative AI world! We also highlight a few guest interviews worth revisiting, like our chats with Bill Nye and Ann Druyan.

As for recent news, we quickly recap the OpenAI drama around Sam Altman’s ouster, discuss Google’s new Gemini AI platform, and chat about the revelation that governments are spying on our push notifications. Cherlynn also details her experience with Apple’s Personal Voice feature for iPhones and gives us a demo of her AI-generated digital voice.

Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!

Topics

• It’s our 200th episode! We look back on what’s changed in tech since the show relaunched – 1:02

• Sam Altman sacked and reinstated, a recap of the OpenAI drama – 44:29

• Google announces Gemini AI, its answer to GPT-4 – 50:04

• Microsoft upgrades Copilot with OpenAI’s GPT-4 Turbo and DALL-E 3 – 54:23

• Governments are spying on push notifications, Google and Apple can’t do anything about it – 55:41

• Mark Gurman reports Apple is working on revamped iPad Pros and an M3 MacBook Air – 58:02

• Cherlynn’s experience with the new iOS accessibility feature Personal Voice – 58:58

• Pop culture picks – 1:05:01

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Credits
Hosts: Cherlynn Low and Devindra Hardawar
Guest: Sam Rutherford
Producer: Ben Ellman
Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien

Comment sections can be a place of both community and animosity, with the speed of responses presenting a moderation challenge. YouTube is attempting to find a happy balance, announcing additional comment controls for creators — most notably the option to pause comments. The company trialed the feature and is now rolling it out to everyone.

The option to pause allows for existing comments to remain visible while not allowing other accounts to submit any more. Previously, creators could only disable comments from their channel or review each one before posting. Unlike the review setting, pause stops any remarks from coming in at all, removing the risk of a pile-up or viewing negative and inappropriate comments. Basically, if someone wants to spend time on other things like video creation or activities outside of YouTube, they can do so without thinking about the viewers waiting for their responses to go live. 

YouTube has also reorganized and renamed some of the comment settings, along with adding the pause feature. Now, creators will see three choices under the comments setting: On, Pause and Off. More specific moderation options appear when comments are turned on, starting with Basic, which holds comments that might be inappropriate for review. Then there's Strict, which casts a broader net as to which comments must be reviewed first, and Hold All, which lets creators review and approve every comment before they post it publicly. Creators can also choose to have comments turned on without any of these additional filters. 

Amazon regularly makes changes to the costs and availability of its groceries. The company's latest attempt to drive more business comes in the form of a subscription plan. Prime members can now pay $10 monthly for unlimited free Amazon Fresh and Whole Foods deliveries on orders over $35. The subscription also includes unlimited 30-minute pickup orders, regardless of the amount spent. 

The addition of Whole Foods is notable as any delivery from the retailer through Amazon has included a $10 delivery fee since 2021. However, Amazon Fresh grocery deliveries over $35 were already free for Prime members until early this year when Amazon added a fee for grocery deliveries under $150. The company reduced that threshold to $100 in October, with a $7 fee on Fresh orders of $50 to $100 and a $10 fee on orders below $50. So, basically, Prime members can now pay $10 each month to have the same deal they had up until January — plus the $15 monthly or $139 annually to be a Prime member.

The addition of a subscription plan follows other attempts from Amazon to drum up business for its grocery sector. In November, Amazon expanded Fresh grocery delivery and pickup to anyone, not just Prime members. Amazon is starting small with its newest offer, rolling out the subscription plan to Prime members in three US cities: Sacramento, CA, Columbus, OH and Denver, Colorado. 

This one-of-a-kind PS5 console was customized with the PS1’s retro gray finish, and classic quad-color PS logo. Even the DualSense controller was given a late-90s makeover, with a cute plug cover for the PS5’s front USB-C port to mimic the first-ever PlayStation’s controller.

No, this won’t go on sale. It’s a farewell gift for SIE (Sony Interactive Entertainment) President and CEO Jim Ryan, who is retiring in March 2024. At a thank-you party this week, the outgoing PlayStation boss was honored by many industry legends, including the “father of PlayStation” Ken Kutaragi, Gran Turismo’s Kazunori Yamauchi, Team Asobi’s Nicolas Doucet and, of course, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida.

It was a gaming-heavy 24 hours, actually. This year’s Game Awards barraged us with new trailers and game news. Surprise, free DLC, an RPG set on an entirely procedurally generated world and a... Blade game?

— Mat Smith

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The biggest stories you might have missed

Sega is resurrecting its classics including Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi and Golden Axe

Hideo Kojima’s Xbox game is the cinematic horrorfest OD

Here’s how to move your subscriptions off Google Podcasts before it shuts down

Meta’s Threads is getting searchable hashtags that aren’t quite hashtags

The company is trying to prevent “engagement hacking.”

Meta’s latest update for Threads brings the long-awaited ability to search for topics, with tags. Although the feature is under the familiar # symbol, Threads’ tags are slightly different to hashtags. Instagram head Adam Mosseri explained Threads tags can contain spaces and special characters, and can only use a single tag per post, so choose wisely.

Continue reading.

The makers of No Man’s Sky will simulate a whole planet for Light No Fire

Hello Games’ new title is an Earth-sized multiplayer RPG sandbox.

TGA

UK indie studio Hello Games has announced its next game, Light No Fire, which will bring the procedural generation of No Man’s Sky to an entire planet on an incredibly detailed scale. It will combine open-world exploration with multiplayer community building, set on a planet the size of Earth, apparently. Light No Fire has been in development for five years by about a dozen developers at Hello Games, but there’s no release window yet.

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Google admits it staged a Gemini AI demo video

There was no voice interaction, nor did the demo happen in real time

Google

As Google scales up its AI battle with OpenAI and ChatGPT, the company has now admitted one demo, shown in the video “Hands-on with Gemini: Interacting with multimodal AI,” was edited to speed up the results. The interactions, too, weren’t based on voice but text input.

The demo used “still image frames from the footage and prompting via text,” rather than having Gemini respond to — or even predict — a drawing or change of objects on the table in real time. It’s all a little less impressive and comes when Google’s most cutting-edge AI models don’t differ hugely from OpenAI’s latest GPT tricks.

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Baldur’s Gate 3 is available on Xbox Series X/S

The official Game of the Year is finally on Microsoft consoles.

Developer and publisher Larian Studios had pledged to release the Xbox version of this year’s Game of the Year by… the end of the year and said it would reveal the exact date at The Game Awards. True to its word, Larian announced the Xbox version of Baldur’s Gate 3 is out right now.

The delay was due to a technical problem with the Series S, and the inability to make the game’s split-screen feature on the lower-powered console. However, Larian said it had a solution to support split-screen on Series X, but not Series S, and had permission to do so from Xbox bosses.

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The UK is considering an investigation into Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI to decide if it has resulted in an "acquisition of control" that's subject to antitrust law, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) wrote today. The regulator said it's considering "recent developments," no doubt referring to the Sam Altman CEO ouster drama in which Microsoft played a large role. 

"The CMA is now issuing an ITC to determine whether the Microsoft/OpenAI partnership, including recent developments, has resulted in a relevant merger situation and, if so, the potential impact on competition," it said in a news release. "The CMA will review whether the partnership has resulted in an acquisition of control — that is, where it results in one party having material influence, de facto control or more than 50% of the voting rights over another entity."

The regulator noted that the "close and multifaceted" partnership includes a multi-billion dollar investment by Microsoft, technology development cooperation and cloud services. It added that both firms have significant activities in financial and related markets, meaning their business dealings directly affect investors. It added that Microsoft was recently involved in developments related to OpenAI's governance.

When Sam Altman was fired by OpenAI's board, Microsoft stepped in to hire him, and a majority of OpenAI's staff threatened to bolt to Microsoft as well. OpenAI's board relented soon after and Altman returned as CEO. "Microsoft executives have since concluded that the current situation [with Altman back in charge] is the best possible outcome," according to a New Yorker expose on the drama. 

The CMA is now seeking views on whether the partnership creates a relevant merger situation and how it impacts competition in the UK. If an investigation is launched, it would be the second one involving Microsoft in the last year, following the company's Activision Blizzard acquisition. The UK's probe had material effects on that merger, as Microsoft agreed to sell Activision Blizzard game streaming rights to Ubisoft to satisfy the CMA. 

Some Android users are getting an update that could literally save their lives one day. Android users who have a device with the Personal Safety app can now opt-in to sharing medical information with first responders when calling or texting 911. The feature has been available for iPhone and Apple Watch users since the rollout of iOS 13.5 in 2020.

Android users can add information such as caller name, allergies, emergency contacts and preexisting medical conditions. "This is when the information you put inside your phone becomes useful to 911," Tenea Reddick, ECC director at Baltimore City Fire Department, said in a statement. "This information is available to use before the dispatch, and before the responders arrive. It saves so much time because we already know what we're responding to and what we need." The feature is especially beneficial if the person contacting 911 is unable to communicate.

For now, this feature is only available on Androids with the Personal Safety app, such as the Nothing Phone 1 and the Google Pixel 4 through Google Pixel 8 Pro. Anyone with these devices can enable the new feature by going to the "Your info" section of the Personal Safety app. From there, they can click "Emergency info access" and then "Share during emergency call." 

Android and Apple's services are run by RapidSOS, a safety platform that securely shares critical information in times of crisis to over 16,000 911 and field responder agencies. Apple users can access Medical ID, a feature in the Health app that, similar to Android's Personal Safety app, stores information such as blood type, emergency contacts, allergies and preexisting medical conditions. RapidSOS shares this data with first responders, who can also determine a person's location if they call 911 in an area with Enhanced Emergency Data services. Android users have also had the ability to send location data through RapidSOS since 2018. 

Apple built more iPhone 15s in India than any past model and it plans to continue that trend. The company will shift a quarter of its iPhone production — more than 50 million phones — to the nation within the next two to three years, The Wall Street Journal reported. China would still remain the largest iPhone supplier by a good margin, though.

Foxconn and other Apple suppliers reportedly believe that the push into India has been proceeding well, so they're setting the stage for future expansion. The company proceeded slowly at first due to infrastructure problems and powerful unions that have helped set more restrictive labor rules — pushing back against 12-hour work days, for example.  

India's commerce minister said at the beginning of 2023 that Apple planned to build 25 percent of its phones in the nation, but there was never any timeframe attached to that. Two to three years would represent a fairly dramatic ramp-up, considering that the iPhone 15 marked the first time it had released a model made in India on launch day. 

It's also been known that Apple contractor Foxconn would manufacture more iPhone 15s than past models its facility in Tamil Nadu, India. It's part of Apple's plan to diversify manufacturing in the face of supply chain risks due to tensions between the US and China. Foxconn is currently building a plant in the southern Karnataka state expected to open in April 2024, and has another megaplant on the drawing board as well, according to the WSJ's sources. 

To date, Apple has only built a small percentage of its iPhones in India, and production previously lagged behind China by up to nine months. That changed with the iPhone 14, which started manufacturing the same month as in China, and iPhone 15s built in India were available in stores at launch. 

Relations between US and China are delicate at the moment, with the US recently taking measures to block access to advanced technology in the nation. Apple continues to stress the nation's importance, though, with CEO Tim Cook having traveled there twice in 2023. Apple also sells a large number of phones in China, accounting for about 19 percent of its total revenue — while stressing that all phones in sold China through authorized channels are also built in China and use local suppliers. 

Remember the 20th anniversary limited edition PlayStation 4? No, I didn't get one, either. But what if Sony were to port that same sweet retro look from the PS1 to the PS5? Look no further than the farewell gift which SIE (Sony Interactive Entertainment) President and CEO Jim Ryan — who is retiring in March 2024 — received yesterday.

In a photo posted by Yuichi Haga, the Global Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Lead at SIE, the "one of a kind" PS5 console — not the slim model — was customized with the PS1's retro gray finish, along with the classic quad-color "PS" logo. Even the DualSense controller was given a DualShock 1 makeover, complete with a cable and a cute plug cover that goes over the PS5's front USB-C port. Ryan's team went the extra mile to make a special packaging design — one that pays homage to the PS1's box art.

At yesterday's thank-you party, the outgoing PlayStation boss was honored by many industry legends, including the "father of PlayStation" Ken Kutaragi, Gran Turismo's Kazunori Yamauchi, Team Asobi's Nicolas Doucet and, of course, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida. PlayStation's BAFTA-winning indies lead, Shuhei Yoshida, was notably absent as he had to attend The Game Awards (while nabbing the "Games for Impact" award on behalf of Awaceb, the developer behind indie title, Tchia).

It's unclear as to whether us mere mortals will get to own a version of this special edition PS5, but considering that it'll be PlayStation's 30th anniversary next year, perhaps Sony will consider making one for the PS5 Slim then?