This is a must for serious and amatuer BBQers and cooks. This device not only measures the meat temperature, but most importantly the cooking temperature; it also has a timer. I've been using this with my Bradley Smoker for two months now, and have been receiving excellent results. I am satified with the transmission distance. Like with most radio devices, reception depend on what the signal has to travel through to get to the receiver. Also, as for myself, if I place the receiver too near my computer, it will not receive a signal.

Comments: As mentions in another post, setting the meat, and smoker maximum and minimum temperatures can get annoying, but you don't have to select one diget at a time. Holding the button down, you quickly scroll to the temperature you want. The alarm needs to be louder; but it is adequate if you are near the receiver. For smokers, whose cooking time may take twelve hours or more, battery life may be a problem. If there is a battery failure you need to reset the system, after installing fresh ones. Maverick customer support is excellent. My meat probe failed and they sent me one out immediately.

I give it 4 out of 5 stars, because I feel the documentation that accompany the ET-73 could better, there should be up down buttons to adjust temperature settings, and a belt clip should be included.

I am an avid griller, BBQ'er and Smoker (year rounder, competitions, 15 pound meats etc...). I purchased this product after enjoying using the Williams/Sonoma remote probe temperature gage for quite some time. I now believe that a remote temperature gage is a must.

This particular product works as advertised and I am happy with it. I would describe it as average, nothing special. It seems to work well, has a decent transmitting distance (although I hear there was a bad batch out there that were very weak). The digits are large and easily readable in a glance. The alarm couldn't be louder. The back light is bright. And the probes seem high quality that will last a while.

However, it has a few annoying traits: 1) The on/off switch on the Transmitter is located behind the battery door which means you have to take off the battery door to access it, not a huge problem as the door access screw only takes a quick half turn with a penny or fingernail. 2) Setting the Food and Smoker alert levels is also an annoying as the device only has one "adjust" button that scrolls up one degree at a time. This means that if you currently have a 180 degree setting (beef well done) and wish to change it to 140 degrees (beef rare) you must scroll the digits past the max setting 370 degrees (who cooks anything to this temperature?) around to the minimum setting, and if you miss it or forget to push enter you have to go all the way around again. It reminds me of the early digital alarm clock radios where if you passed 7 AM wake up time you had to go all the way past 7 PM to get back to 7 AM. The feature can be VERY annoying, especially since most other remote probes have both and UP and DOWN buttons, but they don't have the smoker temperature probe that this one does.

Overall I'd buy another one but I wouldn't pay too much for it.

This would be a great product if you could use it as a "Remote Smoker Thermometer" as the name implies. Range on mine was about 15ft, rendering it almost useless. Since I can't use it for it's intended purpose, what good is it all? Unless you are going to use it like the picture on the box (your smoker right outside your window) I wouldn't recommend it. Also there is a certain order in which you have to turn the units on in order for them to recognize each other. Even turning them on in the suggested order I have problems. It gets frustrating...
It is very disappointing that it has these issues, otherwise it would be a real handy gadget & time saver!

The 15 foot range is very disappointing. If some company can produce a similar product with a true range of near 100', I'd pay twice the $40 I paid for this. I'm currently sitting 30' from the transmitter and am not getting any updates. It has a nice selection of programmable features that would make this a real sweet honey of a must have gadget, without the range however it's a dud.

I bought two ET-73's when they first came out about a year ago. I have had excellent luck with mine. I use them almost every weekend as I do a lot of overnight cooking sessions in my smokers. I dangle the smoker probe down a lid vent in my Weber Smoky Mountain smoker, insert the meat probe in the meat de jour, let the temp get settled in, and go to bed. I put the receiver in the bedroom window about 80 feet from the patio, and very easily check meat and smoker temps throughout the night.

There was recently a bad batch of ET-73's made their way out of the factory. Maverick is supplying outstanding customer support in replacing these units that are proving to be faulty in reception.