Like a smarter George Foreman, this electric grill knows when your food’s done

Learning to grill can be a bit intimidating if you didn’t grow up watching your dad flip burgers every summer. Smart grills are aiming to make the process easier on novices. At CES 2014, we had a chance to test out the Lynx Smart Grill and were wowed by its ability to turn a total novice into a grill master. Of course, that bad boy starts at $6,000, so we’d have to band together with a dozen or so neighbors to afford one and turn it into a communal grill. A price point of $169 provides less sticker shock, and that’s what you can pledge to pick up the Bright Grill on Kickstarter. While it’s far more stripped down than the Lynx, it is equipped with temperature sensors and connects via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to your smart device. Based on your chosen recipe, it will adjust its temperature and tell you when it’s time to flip your food. It has warming features and auto-shutoff as well. One thing it doesn’t have is a temperature probe, so it’s not basing its analysis that your chicken is done off the bird’s internal temperature, as something like the iGrill does. The electric grill is about 20 pounds, and its cooking surface is 240 square inches, enough for eight burgers, according to its creators, who envision it as mainly being used indoors and on balconies. The sub-$200 price makes it a more realistic option than the Lynx, but it’s more of a George Foreman substitute than a Weber one. It’s not quite as pretty as another smart indoor grill, the Cinder (which you can pre-order for $249), but it does have a bigger cooking surface. The Bright Grill isn’t expected to ship until March 2016, which is unfortunately a little late for Super Bowl parties.