Scott, I would suggest you send your request and concerns about the app to the company that develops iGrill. I know they are rather pleased to have made the accessibility changes and may be willing to make a few more tweaks. I have found in more cases than not developers who are willing to make corrections for accessibility. I had considered the Igrill as well, but your review has certainly peaked my interest again. I like to smoke meat as well and this would be a nice solution and especially when we put turkey on for smoking around THanks Giving. I might have to send you a private note to get your thoughts on smokers since I just had to trash my old bullet smoker which gave up the ghost. Thanks for the great review.
Scott On Jun 2, 2012, at 11:38 PM, Scott Bresnahan wrote: > Greetings, > > I do a lot of grilling, and more important, slow smoking of ribs, brisket > and pork and other great meats. (It's times like this I feel sorry for the > vegetarians out there.) But, one of my biggest problems was getting a meet > and grill temperature reading during the cooking process. About a year ago, > I noticed a product called iGrill by iDevices Inc. The url is > http://www.igrillinc.com/ that had a wireless bluetooth digital thermometer > and iPHone/iPod/IPad application. I instantly downloaded the free app, to > see how well it worked with voiceover, and was disappointed. Last week, I > noticed an update for the app that included a bug fix bullet item reading > "improved voiceover support". I downloaded the app and checked it out. > Things looked very very promising, but I didn't have the hardware. That all > changed with a recent UPS delivery. I'm very pleased with their progress, > and feel it is a very useable solution with most features accessible, and I'm > sharing my review here. > > I opened the box and it came with a base unit, two temperature probes, and > batteries. Without reading a thing, I was able to install the batteries, and > plug in the two probes. The front of the unit has three touch sensitive > buttons. Not my first choice for a blind user, but they are dimpled and > distinguishable. At this point I ran the iGrill application on the phone > and listened to the getting started instructions. The three buttons are > power and plus and minus The plus being above the minus and the power being > to the left of those two. However, other than the power button, the device > can be controlled entirely from the iOS application, so you really don't need > to worry about the plus and minus buttons on the unit. > > > > > As instructed by the online documentation accessible via the application, ,I > pressed all three buttons to enable the device to pair, and sure enough, in > Settings, General, Bluetooth, on my iPhone, the iGrill showed up and could be > paired. > . > The key to this product is in the iGrill application, a free download from > the Apple App Store. In the iGrill app, there are Four major button tabs. > Cooking, Tools, INfo and Settings. > > The "cooking" button is where you have access to the remote temperature probe > data. If the device is off an not paired, this section will read not > connected. If the iGrill is on, you will see readable data on two probes > with current temperature, user defined label, and alarm label. Flicking > works perfectly and all data seems easily and quickly accessible. You can > rename the two probe labels to anything you wish. Since I smoke, meat, I > have one labeled as meat and the other as grill. Logical examples might be > fish or chicken. The device comes with two probes designed for food. An > ambient temperature probe for grill surface can be purchased separately. > What I was stunned and pleasantly surprised to see, was that there are a slew > of predefined temperatures for a range of foods that you can pick from that > have the right temperature already defined. Want that tuna the right temp, > pick tuna. Want a chicken done just right, select chicken. And, you may add > your own items to the list. Basically, this is a Label with a target > temperature. All totally accessible and properly labeled with voiceover > tags. Now, what's nice for the smokers out there, you can also specify a > temperature range. Smokers generally like to keep their grill temperature > between 225 and 250, and for any probe, you can specify a target temperature > or a range of temperatures. The target temp will alarm when the probe hits > that temperature. The range temperature will alarm when the temperature goes > above or below that range. Both the target and range temperatures work great. > > My only complaint on the cooking tab is that for both probes you have the > option of facebook and twitter buttons. In my opinion, a waste of space. > Just because you can integrate easily with social media via the iOS API > doesn't mean you should. At the very least, I wish the buttons would go away > of you don't have a twittter or facebook account. Maybe they'll read this > review and make it a preference. I'll save my diatribe for the insanity of > facebook for another post. > > > The Tools tab has three items: Timers, Graph, and Globe. The Timer section > allows you to create either count up or countdown timers. Unfortunately, the > UI for this feature is not Voiceover friendly. You can create a number of > named timers, but picking the time is done through a horrid number of button > items. And the granularity is only to the minute, not second. Basically, > you have to scroll through page after page of 60 buttons, one for each minute > between 0 and 60, plus buttons for hours. It's the craziest UI I've seen for > a time entry field. Popup picker items, or simple text field entry areas > would have been much more useful as well as voice over friendly. I would say > the Timer area is not practical for voiceover users, but the inclusion of a > Timer at all, is a feature that goes above and beyond the core functionality > of the product. > > The next item is Graph. This is not useful for voiceover users, since it > shows the temperature over time visually. A great feature for smokers who > can see, but you can export the data to a csv file and email it to yourself. > But within the app, the raw table data is not available or voiceover friendly. > > The last item is Globe, and this is more social media from what I can tell, > but I will not review it since I do not participate in those things for > privacy and identity theft risk. > > > The third main tab is Info. This has Links to video guides on youtube for > the iGrill. There is a slight incompatibility with voiceover in that if you > double click on the popup video item from a picker selection list, it does > not launch. For some reason, you have to pick it and then close the picker > with the done button, to have the application send you to youtube to see the > video. This is where you can learn about the features of the iGrill as well > as have access to phone and email support and the iGrill store. > > The last tab is Settings, where you can select your preferences regarding > sounds for the alarms, how you wish to see the degrees in C or F. And finally > see the version of the iGrill app itself. > > Overall, the iGrill by iDevices provides a totally accessible two thermometer > probe unit that works with voiceover with your iOS device. It absolutely > solved a problem that I have, and I suspect others out there might appreciate > this product. The lack of usability for some features that are beyond the > core features of the device seem less important. I was able to take the > device from box to grill without any assistance. What I can't speak for now > is the battery life or how the product will hold up over time. > > The list price of the device is $80 and the Ambient probe is an extra $20. I > found mine at amazon.com for about $72. In my opinion, they should bundle a > version with one food probe and one ambient probe for the smokers out there, > but I think overall, the device is a useful product that works well with > voiceover. I'd recommend this product for people who cook and want to know > the temperature of their food and grill or oven. > > The bottomline: I like it and it works well with voiceover. I suggest you > read sighted reviews on amazon for additional details, but the voiceover side > is working well for me. The negatives include the lack of a physical on off > switch and the use of touch sensative buttons on the device, and some extra > features of the application are not voiceover friendly. > > Overall I think it's a great product and demonstrates how a mainstream > product and iOS app that's coded with accessibility in mind can solve a > problem for both sighted and blind user alike. > > > Hope you found this post useful. > --Scott > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google > Group. > To search the VIPhone public archive, visit > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the "VIPhone" Google Group. To search the VIPhone public archive, visit http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/viphone?hl=en.
