The best meat thermometer just got an upgrade I never knew it needed

Thermapen One
(Image credit: Thermoworks)

Whether you like your steak rare or well-done, ensuring it's cooked to perfection every time can seem daunting to even the most proficient of home cooks. While the best air fryers can take care of creating crisp fries, a meat thermometer is a must-have gadget if you want to cook your steak to the right temperature every time.

Not all food thermometers are made equal, but Thermapen from Thermoworks is among one of the best you can buy, favored by professional chefs as well as home cooks. Now it’s been given a smartphone-style upgrade, with an auto-rotating display, and is quicker to display the temperature too.

The Thermapen One includes an accelerometer that can identify how it’s being held and rotate the display accordingly. It’s faster too - providing an accurate reading in less than a second, compared to the two to three seconds required by previous models of Thermapen.

It is available now, priced at $105 / £66 (around AU$135) and comes in 10 colors including red, blue, black and purple. 

Opinion: the upgrade I never knew I needed

I really enjoy cooking at home, and my Thermapen is a must-have for me in the kitchen. In fact, I’m such a keen cook that my friends and family often ask for tips especially when it comes to cooking steak - and recommending a Thermapen is always my first piece of advice. I’ve even taken my Thermapen on holiday with me, just in case I get the chance to cook a steak while I’m away. 

It's not just meat either, I’m a keen baker and use my Thermapen when making Swiss meringue buttercream, which requires heating egg whites and sugar to 63 degrees before whipping them into meringue and adding butter. 

There’s no denying that tilting my head at awkward angles to read the display was one of the downsides of using a Thermapen, particularly when barbecuing - I have to find the right balance between reading the display and not getting blasted by the intense heat. 

The rotating display is already available on the Thermapen Professional, which is known as the Thermapen Mk 4 in the US, but it’s the faster readings that really make the Thermapen One a worthy upgrade over previous iterations. When coupled with the motion sensing technology to conserve battery life and a cool-white back light rather than a yellow tone - it’s definitely time for me to replace my food thermometer. 

Carrie-Ann Skinner

Carrie-Ann Skinner was formerly Homes Editor at TechRadar, and has more than two decades of experience in both online and print journalism, with 13 years of that spent covering all-things tech. Carrie specializes in smart home devices such as smart plugs and smart lights, as well as large and small appliances including vacuum cleaners, air fryers, stand mixers, and coffee machines. Carrie is now a copy editor at PWC.

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