Traeger

Review by eFreeware

If you own a Traeger pellet grill with WiFIRE, the companion app is the piece that turns the cooker into something you can manage from a chair indoors or a parking lot on the way home. It shows grill temperature, tracks internal food temperature through probes, and handles alerts and timers, so the monitoring side of a long cook sits on your phone rather than on a walk out to the patio. That alone is the reason most Traeger owners install it.

The app does not stop at the controller, though. It carries a library of more than 1500 wood-fired recipes, video instruction from pitmasters and chefs, a profile that shapes what you see, and a shop for pellets, sauces, rubs and accessories. For someone who has just bought a pellet grill and wants a single place to learn it, this is a sensible first stop.

The download is free, there are no ads, and there are no in-app purchases. The app has been on Google Play since March 2017, and the install base reflects how tightly it is tied to the hardware: over a million installs and a 4.7 average from more than 29,000 ratings.

Built around the WiFIRE hardware

The clearest audience is anyone with a WiFIRE-equipped Traeger. The app is the remote for that grill: you adjust the set temperature, watch the internal temperature of whatever is on the grate, and set alerts and timers so you are not standing over the barrel for the whole cook. If your grill has the WiFIRE controller, the app is effectively part of the equipment.

The second group is people who cook over wood pellets and want guidance rather than control. The recipe library covers barbecue staples but also baked goods and other wood-fired cooking, and the video content is built around specific dishes and techniques. You do not need a connected grill to read a recipe or watch a pitmaster work through a brisket.

Where the app is narrower is the shopping and dealer side, which is aimed at people already invested in the Traeger ecosystem. Ordering pellets, rubs and accessories through the app, or using the locator to find a dealer nearby, makes most sense if you are buying Traeger products anyway. It is a convenience for owners, not a reason on its own to download the app.

Grill control and monitoring

The control features are the practical core. From the app you can change the grill's temperature, follow the internal temperature of the food through probes, and set alerts and timers for the milestones in a cook. The point is that a long smoke does not need your constant attention; the app watches the numbers and tells you when something needs doing.

It is worth thinking about what that means for the shape of a cook day. Instead of checking a dial every twenty minutes, you can set a target, get on with something else, and come back when the alert fires. For overnight cooks in particular, having the temperature readings and alerts on a phone is the difference between a reasonable night's sleep and none at all.

The app is free and carries no advertising, so the control screen is not interrupted by anything. There are also no in-app purchases, which means nothing in the monitoring side is gated behind a payment.

Recipes, videos and personalized content

The recipe library is the part with the widest appeal. More than 1500 wood-fired recipes are cataloged in the app, spanning barbecue through to baked goods, which is a broader range than the usual burger-and-ribs collection. If you are new to pellet cooking and want to branch out from the standards, that breadth is the strongest argument for keeping the app installed.

Pitmasters and chefs also appear in videos covering recipes and tips. These are the kind of lessons that are hard to get from a written recipe: how a cut should look at a given stage, how to handle a stall, how much rub to apply. Watching someone work through a cook is a different kind of learning from reading steps.

The personalization angle works through a profile where you set your skill level and preferences. The app then serves curated content matched to those settings, and you can follow specific pitmasters and chefs so their new recipes surface for you. It is a reasonable way to keep the feed relevant rather than dumping everything in one list.

Shopping and finding a dealer

The app includes a shop for pellets, sauces, rubs, accessories and the rest of the Traeger catalog. That is convenient if you already know what you want and would rather order from the same place you plan cooks. It is a storefront inside a cooking app, and it behaves like one.

There is also a dealer locator for finding Traeger stockists near you. This is the sort of feature that matters more than it sounds when you are out of pellets on a Saturday afternoon, or when you want to see a grill in person before buying. Both features assume you are buying Traeger products, which is the natural fit for an app tied to Traeger hardware.

What it costs and what that covers

The app is free to download, contains no ads, and offers no in-app purchases. That is a clean arrangement: nothing in the recipe library, the video content, the grill control features or the shop is behind a paywall inside the app. The commercial side comes through the shop and the hardware itself, not through the app charging you.

For a free app tied to a physical product, that is a sensible model. You are not paying twice for the software that drives a grill you already bought, and there is no advertising clutter on the screens you use while cooking. The trade-off is simply that the app is built around Traeger's own products and content.

Alternatives worth weighing

If you own a different brand of pellet grill, the app that comes with your cooker is the more natural choice, since WiFIRE control is specific to Traeger hardware. The recipe and video content here is still readable on any phone, but the control half of the app will not do anything for a grill that does not speak WiFIRE.

If what you mainly want is a large general recipe collection, a dedicated recipe app or a cooking site will cover more ground across cuisines and appliances. The Traeger library is deep in wood-fired cooking specifically, which is a strength if that is how you cook and a limitation if it is not.

If you already use a separate temperature-monitoring setup with its own probes and app, you may find that covers your monitoring needs. The advantage of the Traeger app is that control and monitoring live in the same place as the recipes for your grill, which is hard to replicate with separate tools.

A strong pick for Traeger owners and pellet cooks

The Traeger app makes the most sense for people who own a WiFIRE-equipped Traeger and want their grill, their recipes and their shopping in one place. The control and monitoring features are the reason to install it, and the recipe library and video lessons are the reason to keep opening it between cooks. It is free, ad-free and has no in-app purchases, so there is no cost to trying it alongside your grill.

For anyone cooking over wood pellets without a Traeger, the recipe and video side still has value, though the control features will not apply. The app has been available since 2017 and was updated as recently as October 2026 with bug fixes and performance work, which suggests it is still being looked after.

What's new in version 3.25.0

Bug fixes and performance updates.