Cooking can be a joy when you make a delicious meal, a disappointment when you get it wrong, and disaster when you present the charred, leathery wreckage to your hungry friends and family.
That’s why we created Range Dial — a precision cooking thermometer that works with or without your smartphone. Range helps you achieve that kitchen joy whether it’s grilling, baking, brewing, or candymaking.
Range Dial is the evolution of our previously Kickstarted thermometer, Range. We’ve learned a lot from how our customers use Range, and added the top requests: Bluetooth for wireless monitoring, and a second probe for ambient temperature. But we also thought carefully about the friction points and how we could address them.
Range Dial works with or without a smartphone. Having a connected device shouldn’t mean you have to mess with an app for the most basic functions. Just plug in the probe and turn the dial to a preset—Range Dial will beep at you, and you’ll also get a push notification on your phone when your food is done. Or open the app to have full control. It’s the best of both worlds.
We paid attention to the details. Range Dial is extremely precise thanks to our custom engineered temperature-measuring circuit and probes. It’s built to last with machined stainless steel, silicone and polycarbonate. We didn’t even take the temperature probe for granted, carving useful features into it.
Hi, I’m John. For years I’ve been obsessed with integrating new interfaces and connectivity into everyday objects. At the MIT Media Lab, I built a series of objects that get past the idea that you have to pull out a screen and poke at it to perform basic tasks. That’s not the future—that’s a step backward.
I also love cooking for my family and experimenting in the kitchen, though I’m no expert. With our original Range cooking thermometer, I got better results and did less hovering over the stove and grill.
Thousands of you chefs using Range, professionals and enthusiasts, taught us what we could continue improving. You want a Bluetooth tool that does what it’s told with minimal futzing. We listened.
Tinker with your recipes, not with an app. Range Dial can do things no other thermometer can, and yet we’ve designed it around a physical dial so you don’t have to use your phone.
I’m excited to build a great cooking tool for all of us to use. So, let’s tear our bloodshot eyes off our screens (after you’re done reading this page and pledging) and savor the sights, smells and tastes of life!
What our backers and customers are already doing with the first Range:
We’ve engineered probes for Range Dial to meet any job:
Range Dial has two probe ports. This makes it possible to watch two dishes at once, or get a second reading for ambient temperature (critical for smoking or precise oven roasting). And it means that your Range Dial will be versatile, taking advantage of new and improved cooking sensors. Range Dial will also work with our existing SDK so you can add temperature to any app. We can’t wait to share the ideas we have planned, and to hear your ideas, too.
Support for iOS and plans for Android
Currently, Range Dial will work with your iPhone or iPad running iOS 8 or newer. Your device needs to support Bluetooth Low Energy to connect directly (which means iPhone 4S, iPad 3 or newer), but you can monitor remotely with older devices.
We want to support Android as well, and will be able to make an app that’s up to our standards if we raise over $200,000. A pledge for Range Dial is your vote for Android support. (You can always cancel your pledge before the end of the campaign if we don’t reach that goal.)
Note that we may tweak finishes and colors a bit heading into production, but all with the aim of making this thing great.
We’ve spent our own time and money so far on industrial design, engineering, sourcing components and lining up suppliers. To go into production, we need to polish off development, pay for tooling, and get a minimum quantity commitment. Quality doesn’t come cheap.
We used our experience and deliberate engineering to get the cost down. We owe a lot to our community on Kickstarter for backing us before, and so you get a great price before Range Dial gets released to the rest of the world.
Kickstarter is also amazing for the conversations we can have with backers. When you back us, you won’t just enable us to make Range Dial—as our first and most enthusiastic customers, you’ll have the opportunity to shape it as we make some final decisions.
If you’re an existing Range owner, this Kickstarter benefits you, too. It’ll allow us to continue bringing new features to the Range app.
Goals