
The Smart Meat Thermometer That's So Good I Drove It Cross Country Is Now 40% Off
Last November, I celebrated Thanksgiving 1,100 miles away from where I live at my sister and brother-in-law's home. It was quite the drive -- spread across four days there and back -- so I needed to be diligent about my packing list. Clothes, snacks and my 10-year-old Labrador were obvious must-brings. But there was another essential on my packing list: the iQ Sense smart thermometer from Chef iQ.
I love hosting dinner parties, but I used to be scared to death to cook anything with meat. I would catastrophize that I would end up poisoning and hospitalizing all of my friends with undercooked meat. Now I feel differently. With the iQ Sense, my brother-in-law and I confidently cooked the Thanksgiving turkey perfectly. In fact, my brother-in-law and dad were fascinated by how well the iQ Sense works, and swore up and down that they need their own.
In short, this smart thermometer works so well that it's become a kitchen essential. And it's on sale now at one of the lowest prices I've seen.
The iQ Sense doesn't come cheap, but I'd argue that it's worth the price -- especially if you're trying to elevate your cooking skills and impress your in-laws with first-rate kitchen equipment. What makes this product even better is that you can now get three probes for the normal price of one while the sale lasts. With just about a month to go until Father's Day, this might just be the perfect gift for your cooking enthusiast dad.
Hey, did you know? CNET Deals texts are free, easy and save you money.
I love the ease of the iQ Sense
The iQ Sense is an unlimited-range, wireless cooking thermometer that connects with your phone via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to alert you when your dish is ready to be removed from heat: no more dry turkey or overcooked steak.
You can get one-, two- or three-probe sets to satisfy any of your cooking needs. If you really only cook for yourself, I'd go with one probe, but if you're like me and you enjoy hosting dinner parties or cooking multiple steaks at once, the three-probe set may be your best bet. Now you can get three for less than the price of two.
Here's a breakdown of the deals:
No matter which set you choose, you can feel confident that you won't be serving up undercooked or overcooked meat. Each probe has four internal temperature sensors to monitor the ambient temperature, within 1 degree Fahrenheit of accuracy. As much as I love the accuracy of the iQ Sense, I love its ease and convenience even more.
I also love that I don't have to constantly open the oven door and stick a probe into the meat to check the temperature every few minutes. I can simply pop it in once and leave it to work on other dishes until I'm notified that it's ready to go. When I say "notify," I truly mean it, considering it comes with a built-in speaker for audible alerts. It's like having a sous chef that perfectly cooks meat in your kitchen at all times.
The iQ Sense also makes a thoughtful gift
When you think of great kitchen gifts, you may automatically think about a coffee maker or a quality set of pans. I'd argue that you'd get more use out of a smart thermometer. Every time you cook meat, either for yourself or others, you'll use the iQ Sense. For me, this breaks down to daily use, making it well worth the higher price compared to analog meat thermometers.
With the iQ App, you can also browse over 700 guided cooking recipes from Chef iQ's in-house culinary experts and follow along to hundreds of videos that break down recipes in simple instructions. If you have a home chef in your life looking to expand their skills without spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on cooking classes, then the iQ Sense is an ideal gift.
Will there be more deals on Chef iQ?
Chef iQ's line of intelligent kitchen gadgets is not the cheapest, so it's good to keep an eye out for discounts on the website -- and Amazon sales are the best time to score Chef iQ products at a discount while you can. The iQ Sense is also available at Costco.
For more smart kitchen tech, you should also check out the iQ Cooker, a smart multicooker that also offers the same ease and intelligence to users.
If you're looking for other useful, fun gifts for your favorite hostess or the chef in your life, here are our favorite kitchen gifts under $50.

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From there, you can tap or circle what you'd like to remove. You can even pinch to zoom in and get closer, if there's something smaller you'd like to eliminate. And voila! You've got an Instagram-ready, distraction-free shot. – Abrar Al-Heeti, senior reporter 👉 See: How to Remove Distractions From Your Holiday Photos Using Apple's Clean Up Tool Fix a weird or wonky AI image So, you've generated an image using AI, and it's just… not quite right. A weird flub in the background, a disappearing element, a person with three legs and 14 fingers — despite constant advancements, AI image generators aren't perfect. Mistakes (or hallucinations) like these are headaches I've had to deal with many times while testing and reviewing different AI generators. There's not one specific reason why your image didn't come out quite right, but I recommend starting at the beginning. Revisit your prompt to make sure it's addressing everything you want, and take out any conflicting instructions. Try not to use too many post-generation editing tools. Less is more. If that still isn't working, it might be time to start from scratch or even pick a different service. – Katelyn Chedraoui 👉 See: Learn From My Worst AI Images and Fix These Biggest AI Fails Digging deeper Remove or reduce AI features on your Samsung Galaxy phone It's almost impossible to find a new phone that doesn't tout AI features. Unlike the Pixels and the iPhones of the world, Samsung gives you a lot of extra... everything. From preinstalled bloatware to its own app store that allows you extend the functionality of your phone, it's a lot. With so many features packed into Galaxy S phones, you may want to draw a line when it comes to AI. Until it becomes less gimmicky, at least. Luckily, Samsung also makes it fairly easy to turn off its built-in AI features — something we'd love to see Google allow you to do on its Pixel lineup. But it's not just about turning AI off. You can be selective about what AI features you want and turn off the ones you don't. In this sense, Samsung's "extra-ness" pays off. If you're an iPhone user, you have your own set of options for turning off Apple Intelligence. – Blake Stimac, How To Writer 👉 See: How to Turn Off AI on Your Samsung Galaxy Phone, or at Least Rein It In Find info using Circle to Search Ever see something on your phone and wish you could just Google it, without having to leave the app that you're in? That's exactly what Circle to Search does. On your compatible Android phone, all you need to do is press and hold the home button, draw a quick circle around whatever caught your eye, and boom — Google gives you all the details you need. It's great for quick product lookups, translating text, or just settling those "what is that?" moments. It started on newer phones, like the Galaxy S24 and Pixel 8, but it's since rolled out to older models like the Galaxy S21 and Pixel 6. There's also a similar feature available in Google Chrome for the iPhone, in case you're team Apple. – Nelson Aguilar 👉 See: Google Brings Circle to Search-Like Feature to the iPhone in Its Google and Chrome Apps Use AI to spice up your photos on the Google Pixel 9 While the Pixel 9 series of phones pack superb cameras, the baked-in AI image editing tools let you easily take things further by adding or removing items from the frame. Start by opening an image in the library, then tap Edit, then tap the multicolored image icon tucked in the bottom left corner of the screen. This will bring up the AI-based Magic Editor. In the tool, you can now tap on areas of your image — the sky, for example — or draw circles around certain objects to select them and then tap Reimagine. This will bring up a text box allowing you to type in your prompts of what you want to see. I might circle a section of empty, boring sky and type a prompt of "flock of birds" to add an extra element into the scene, or add some flowers to liven up a dull patch of grass. Each prompt will give you three options to choose from and you can press Redo to get a new set of results. – Andrew Lanxon, editor at large 👉 See: Pixel 9 Pro XL Review: 2 Months Later, Google's Phone Still Rocks


Geek Wire
an hour ago
- Geek Wire
15 years, 5 big shifts: What we've seen in Seattle tech since starting the GeekWire Podcast
The Seattle skyline in 2010. Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Fifteen years ago, Steve Jobs and Apple had just introduced the first iPad, Steve Ballmer's Microsoft had been left for dead, and nerdy online bookseller Jeff Bezos was still getting Amazon settled into its South Lake Union headquarters. That's when we started what became the GeekWire Podcast. This week, we go back to 2010, revisiting clips from the earliest days of the show. We remember what was happening with Amazon, Microsoft, and Seattle's startup scene, and wrap our heads around how things have changed since then. Here are five of the biggest changes we've seen. Amazon went from scrappy startup to tech titan. In 2010, Amazon added 9,400 employees — a 40% increase that felt huge at the time. Today, with more than 1.5 million employees, that would barely register. Microsoft pulled off a rare comeback. Microsoft was cutting costs to maximize margins. Growth had stalled, and its relevance was fading. We never would have imagined Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg one day calling Microsoft 'the greatest technology company of all time.' Seattle's startup community isn't as tight-knit. Back then, there was a stronger sense of identity in being a 'Seattle startup.' Companies were rooted here. Today's startups are distributed — maybe a few executives in Seattle, engineering teams overseas, other leaders on the East Coast. The tight-knit community has evolved into something more tenuous. Silicon Valley arrived full-force in Seattle. Over the past 15 years, Seattle became home to major engineering centers for companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Salesforce. Some arrived through acquisitions, others opened offices from scratch. The tech talent market took off, bringing more competition, higher salaries, and more opportunities. The cloud led the way to AI. Back then, Amazon Web Services was a few years old. Microsoft had just launched Azure. The investments they were making ushered in a new cloud era that ultimately ignited the artificial intelligence boom. Thanks for listening to the GeekWire Podcast! If you've been with us since the start, shoot us a note at todd@ It would be great to hear from you. — GeekWire co-founders Todd Bishop and John Cook. Subscribe to GeekWire in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Audio editing by Curt Milton.