- Light the fire in the charcoal basket.
- Install the heat deflector and cooking grate.
- Place the pit probe on the grate (meat out) and close the lid.
- Tick "Calibrate the IR sensor on this start" and press "Start PitHawk".
- We will alert you when to pull the probe (around 88).
Claim your device from the login screen or the menu's "Add device": enter the 8-digit device ID and the claim code shown on the device's Wi-Fi setup page, or generate a setup token and type it into the device's own Wi-Fi portal — it claims itself once online.
A "cook" (session) starts automatically once probe readings begin coming in — no separate start button. It ends when you tap "End cook" in the menu, or after a long period of inactivity.
Multiple probes of the same type
If you have more than one pit or meat probe, pick how they combine: Highest, Average, or Lowest. This only affects what's shown and used for control — every probe's raw reading is still recorded.
Tracking probes separately
With 2+ meat probes, turn on "track separately" to give each one its own name, target, and mini chart — handy when smoking different cuts at once.
Docked vs. out of range
"Docked" means the probe is resting in its charging base — still broadcasting over Bluetooth, but not giving a real temperature. A probe that's simply out of Bluetooth range shows no signal at all.
RF thermometer switched off
A ThermoPro RF thermometer switches itself off when all its probes stay below 40°C/104°F for 2 hours, so one left idle on a bench or by a cold smoker goes silent and shows as offline. Turn it back on and the PitHawk picks it up again by itself. During a cook the pit probe stays hot, so this should not happen.
Grate/IR probe (optional)
If your device has an infrared grate sensor, it estimates pit temperature when no Bluetooth probe is connected. It needs a one-time calibration run before its readings are trusted — see "How to calibrate the grate IR sensor" below.
PitHawk supports Bluetooth & Wi-Fi thermometers that have an ambient/pit probe to monitor and regulate smoker temperature.
Supported
Inkbird INT-11P / INT-11C / INT-11X / INT-21 (dual core + ambient), INT-11S / INT-31 (multi-core + ambient), INT-12 / INT-12E / INT-14 / INT-14S (multi-probe docks), INDT-33 (hybrid), classic iBBQ (IBT-2X/4XS/6X), and IBS-TH ambient sensors.
Unsupported (meat only)
Single-sensor models like Inkbird INT-11I / INT-111 (Mini). Because they lack an ambient pit sensor, they cannot be used for smoker temperature control.
PitHawk connects directly to supported Bluetooth thermometers to monitor and regulate pit and meat temperatures.
- Wake your thermometer: remove the probe from its charging dock or turn it on so it is actively broadcasting.
- Open the menu (☰) in the top bar and tap "Scan BLE devices".
- Hold the thermometer near the PitHawk controller. It scans for ~60 seconds and displays all detected supported devices with their signal strength.
- Find your probe in the list and tap "Pair". The controller locks onto it and begins streaming temperature readings immediately.
- To switch or disconnect later, open "Scan BLE devices" again and tap "Forget".
The infrared sensor measures radiant heat from the grate and coals, not air temperature. It needs a one-time calibration to learn how that relates to your actual pit temperature. The device collects data in the background, but calibration only applies when you press Calibrate.
How it runs: press once, it applies when ready
Calibration needs two steady temperatures at least 40°C/72°F apart: a cold point (room temperature before lighting) and a hot point (anything from about 90°C/195°F up — your cooking temperature easily qualifies). Press Calibrate anytime, even before lighting. The app holds the request and runs it automatically once both 15-minute steady holds exist. If it only catches a warm-up pair before the meat goes in, it applies that and widens itself later when the pit settles at cooking temperature.
Step by step
- Light the fire in the charcoal basket.
- Install the heat deflector and cooking grate.
- Place the pit probe on the grate (meat out) and close the lid.
- Tick "Calibrate the IR sensor on this start" and press "Start PitHawk".
- We will alert you when to pull the probe (around 88).
- Install deflectors, water pans, and plates exactly as you cook. A water pan flattens the sensor's response; calibrating with it out and cooking with it in invalidates the reading.
- Put the reference pit probe beside the food at grate level, in airflow, not touching metal or directly "seeing" the fire. The calibration faithfully learns whatever this probe reads.
- Aim the IR sensor at the grate. Keep its body out of the firebox (< 100°C/212°F). Mount it once and do not move it.
- Calibrate with the grate in its usual condition. Bare, scrubbed steel radiates very differently than soot.
- Keep the fire and fuel bed roughly as you normally run them.
- "Not calibrated" — Nothing usable yet. Shows raw IR.
- "Calibrating…" / "Calibration queued" — Waiting for steady points. Applies automatically when ready.
- "Ready to calibrate — press Calibrate" — enough settled points have been collected and a press will be applied immediately. "Calibration queued" means you already pressed, before the sensor was ready: it runs on its own the moment the sensor has a settled cold point and a settled hot one, and a Cancel button sits beside it until then.
- “Calibrated for warm-up (25–80°C) ✓” — Stage one applied. Will extend itself at cooking temp.
- "Calibrated ✓" — Done. Shows corrected pit estimate.
- "≈ IR estimate" — No probe in the pit; the IR estimate is driving your blower.
- "⚠️ Sensor disconnected" — Sensor lost; stops driving the fire.
The estimate is valid between your cold and hot calibration points. Below this span, the estimate continues driving the blower so the fire doesn't stall. Above this span, it stops driving the blower to prevent runaways (reading a hot pit too low). Outside the −20°C to 350°C (−4°F to 660°F) range, the estimate is rejected entirely.
A calibration never expires. The only thing it does on its own is widen, and only by adding a point — the ones you approved are kept exactly as they were, and if one of them has since moved it leaves your calibration alone rather than adopting a different mapping. It is cleared if the sensor physically disconnects, and it stops driving the blower if the device measures it wrong twice in a row (below). Re-calibrate if you: move or re-aim the sensor, add/remove deflectors or pans, scrub the grate bare, or move the reference probe.
The device verifies the calibration during every cook. If it sees two consecutive 15-minute steady holds where the IR estimate disagrees with your pit probe by >10°C/18°F, it alerts you, stops driving the blower off the estimate, and waits for you to Re-calibrate.
Re-calibrate once a season. The sensor reads the difference between the grate and its own temperature, and your smoker loses heat to the air around it — so the same fire behaves differently in summer than it does in autumn or winter. A calibration made in July will be off by October. Once per season, on your first cook of that season, is enough.
- Calibrating with no pit probe in the smoker (nothing is learned).
- Nudging the target up and down during a hold (restarts the 15-minute window).
- Only cooking at one temperature (needs a 40°C/72°F spread).
- Judging accuracy during ramp-up (IR lags behind air temp).
- Changing deflectors/pans after calibrating.
- Letting the reference probe touch metal or "see" the fire directly.
- Putting the meat in before pressing Calibrate (reads artificially low).
- Lighting the charcoal the moment you plug the device in (misses the free cold point).
- Leaving the probe and the sensor running on a bench, un-mounted. The device cannot tell a rig on a table from a cold smoker — both are steady at room temperature — so it used to record calibration points from either. Since v1.0.125 it holds anything captured before a cook is confirmed (you pressed Start PitHawk, or the pit genuinely got hot) and only saves it once one is, but the habit to keep is simple: assemble on the smoker first, then power up.
Set your target pit temperature on the Pit card. The blower fan then runs a PID control loop that automatically adjusts airflow to hold that temperature — no manual fiddling needed.
"Start PitHawk" runs the blower at full blast until the pit reaches its ignition threshold (default 50°C/122°F), then hands off to normal control. "Smolder" holds a fixed low airflow with no target needed — useful between cooks or for keeping food warm.
"Stop blower" pauses airflow entirely; "Reset to normal" returns to automatic control. Tap "View full cook" on the Temp or Fan chart to see the whole cook instead of just the live window.
Chat assistant
Ask the AI chat anything about your cook — it can read live status and, when you ask it to, change settings like the pit target or blower state on your behalf.
Watches & check-ins
Ask the AI in plain language to "alert me when the meat hits 70°C" — it fires a pop-up alert even with the app closed. The AI also messages you proactively on events like a stall or the meat finishing.
Ready-by & auto-control
Tell the AI a target time ("ready by 7pm") and it estimates whether you're on track. Turn on auto-control if you want it to nudge your pit target toward that deadline automatically — otherwise it only recommends changes for you to approve.
Simple safety alerts
Separately from watches, you can set fixed pit min/max and meat max thresholds — a persistent warning banner, not a popup, that stays until the condition clears.
For phrasings that actually work — and for what stays armed after you close the app — see "Working with the AI" below.
Most of what the assistant can do has no button anywhere in the app — you reach it by asking in plain language. These phrasings all work. Use whichever temperature unit the app is showing; it answers in the same one.
Check on the cook
- "How's it going?"
- "What happened while I was asleep?"
- "Is the pit holding steady, or is it drifting?"
Change targets
- "Raise the pit to 120°C/248°F."
- "Set the meat target to 95°C/203°F."
- "Set the brisket to 95°C/203°F and leave the ribs alone." — works once "track separately" is on; call each probe by the name you gave it.
Get alerted
- "Tell me when the brisket reaches 70°C/158°F."
- "Alert me if the pit drops below 90°C/194°F."
- "What alerts do I have set?" · "Cancel all my alerts."
Timing
- "I want to eat at 7pm — am I on track?"
- "You can adjust the pit yourself to hit that." — turns on auto-control, which is off by default. Without it you only get recommendations.
- "Check in with me every 10 minutes." · "Stop the check-ins."
Overnight and multi-stage cooks
- "Hold 110°C/230°F for now, then drop to 90°C/194°F in six hours."
- "When the meat hits 68°C/154°F, raise the pit to 130°C/266°F." — this makes the change on its own when it fires, app closed or not.
- "If it stalls, push the pit to 130°C/266°F." — a stall means the meat rose less than 2°C/4°F in 30 minutes.
- "Cancel the scheduled change."
Fan and lighting
- "Stop the fan, I'm opening the lid." · "Resume normal control."
- "End the full-blast phase at 60°C/140°F instead of 50°C/122°F."
Past cooks
- "What did I smoke last time, and how long did it take?"
- "How does this compare to my last brisket?" · "Show me the stall from that cook."
What keeps running after you close the app
Four kinds of request stay live on the device itself and can act while nobody is watching: a watch, a scheduled temperature change, an armed stall action, and — only if you switched it on — the AI steering the pit toward your ready-by time. Working with the app closed is the point of them; it also makes it worth knowing what you have left armed.
Armed is not the same as triggered. A watch or stall action waits, possibly for hours, and fires the first moment its condition is true — "if it stalls, raise the pit" will do exactly that at 3am.
Check and cancel what is armed
Open Rules from the menu: it lists every armed stall action, ready-by deadline, upcoming scheduled change, waiting watch and safety threshold, read fresh from the device each time you open it. You can also just ask — "what's armed right now?" — or say "cancel all my alerts" to clear the watches.
"End cook" clears the ready-by deadline and any armed stall action. It does not clear watches or scheduled changes — those stay until they fire, until you cancel them, or until the device is fully power-cycled. Asking for a new schedule replaces the previous one outright, and attaching a planned change to a watch cancels a pending scheduled one, so the two can never both fire for what you meant as a single change.
Limits the AI cannot cross
- Ask for a change directly in chat and the pit can go anywhere in 50–300°C/122–572°F — you are watching, so you get the full range.
- A change nobody confirmed — a scheduled entry, a deadline adjustment, a proactive check-in — is capped at 165°C/329°F and may not move the pit more than 40°C/72°F in one step.
- The background deadline helper is tighter still: it stays inside 90–150°C/194–302°F and moves in steps of 5–10°C/9–18°F.
- Meat targets are limited to 40–212 and the full-blast cutoff to 30–212 — plain probe numbers, no units. If a limit looks unfamiliar, the probe is probably set to the other scale: see Issues.
- Ask for something outside those bounds and the assistant says so and asks you to make the change yourself.
The meat ETA is an estimate based on the recent cooking rate — treat it as a rough guide, especially early in a cook or during a stall/plateau, when it may say "insufficient data" or "may plateau."
Once the meat hits its target (or you end the cook early), the Meat card switches to a rest countdown — either a live countdown to a safe resting temperature, or a simple note if the cut doesn't need one.
The bell icon keeps a running history of everything that happened this session: lid-open, low charcoal, stalls, safe mode, and probes going offline/online.
"Safe mode" is the device's own overheat protection — it disables the blower and sensors until things cool down, and always shows as a critical alert.
Turn on push notifications from the menu to get these alerts even when the app isn't open.
Open Rules from the menu for a read-only summary of everything currently armed on the device: any stall action, ready-by deadline, scheduled temperature changes, active AI watches, and your safety thresholds.
The History tab lists every past cook as a card with its date, duration, and peak pit/meat temperatures. Tap a card to see its full chart, including separate charts for any probes you tracked individually.
The °C/°F switch changes only the letter next to temperatures and the scale the AI speaks — numbers are never converted. History shows every reading exactly as recorded: cooks logged before September 2026 were stored in Celsius, so a step in old charts where the scale changed is expected, not a bug.
When an update is available, a banner appears with the current and new version numbers — tap "Install update" and the device downloads and applies it on its own.
"Turn off device" puts it to deep sleep to save power. It will NOT turn itself back on — you'll need to physically unplug/replug it or press its reset button.
"Re-authorize" opens a short window letting an already-claimed device re-register itself (e.g. after a factory reset) without needing the physical code again. "Remove device" unlinks it from your account entirely.
The °C/°F switch flips the letter next to temperatures (numbers are never converted — match it to your probe's own setting, see Issues). Language (English/Hebrew, with automatic right-to-left layout) is one tap away at the top of the app.
Rename any probe by tapping its name on the dashboard. Enable or disable push notifications, and switch the color theme, from the menu.
Numbers look wrong? Check the probe's °C/°F setting
PitHawk shows exactly the numbers your probe transmits — the °C/°F switch changes only the letter beside them, never the numbers. Match the switch to your probe's own scale: open the Inkbird vendor app, find your probe's temperature-display (unit) setting, and set the switch to the same scale. Rule of thumb: if room temperature reads around 75 with the switch on °C, the probe is set to Fahrenheit.
Probe switches itself off?
The probe turns itself off after a period of inactivity to save battery. To keep it awake for a cook, set a one-time meat target in the Inkbird vendor app — an active target keeps the probe from auto-sleeping.
On the new PitHawk's WiFi setup page (connect to its "PitHawk-AP" (older units: "Pitmaster-AP") network first), enter your WiFi password AND this token together, then tap Save. The PitHawk registers itself to this account as soon as it connects — no need to come back here.
Valid for 20 minutes.