u/wibzoo

I live in a high fire risk area and must sadly retire my kamado grill.  That grill can hold temp to smoke low-n-slow all day, sear meat, and top 800 degrees for amazing pizza.  A hard act to follow. 

I am considering a 2026 Prestige Pro 500 Smart Grill with the optional electric smoker box (comes built in to the 650).  I am hoping the smart function can hold a low temp, the sear burner can add a nice crust to an almost-there steak, and the electric smoker box will provide enough smoke (I don’t mind refilling it via the pull out drawer) for real BBQ. The smoking part is important to me.

Are my expectations realistic?  How hot can you get the grill? Does anyone have experience with the new electric smoking drawer? Any other sage advice?

7 months ago I posted how the Fi 3 untethered battery life was 1/3 of the old Fi 2, how we upgraded to the Fi 3+ on he promise of better efficiency, how at first the Fi 3+ was just as bad, but that Fi 3+ untethered battery life doubled with a promised firmware update and went from about 6 days to 12.5 days.  

r/FiDogCollar/fi_3+_untethered_battery_life_25x_fi_3

I’ve consistently been getting that 12.5 day untethered battery life through April.  Now, with recent firmware updates, I am back down to just over 6 days again.  

Fi folks, this is a huge loss of functionality.  Please evaluate what changed and consider fixing. If it has to do with new AI features/etc., please provide a way to toggle them off for max battery life.

I’ve been generally happy with Arlo over the last 10 years until they reworked the app model a couple years back and broke Arlo for my use case. I believe many have been unhappy with that change.

Arlo proactively reached out to me after seeing comments on this forum, and created a support case. Awesome! I respond in a timely manner to each e-mail interaction but, now that it seems apparent that the suggestions don’t work, all I get are e-mails saying:

“We're reaching out regarding your open support case. If you still need assistance, we're here and ready to help.
You can reconnect with us anytime through the Support Center in your Arlo Secure App so we can continue working with you.
If we don't hear back from you, your case will be automatically closed tomorrow. However, you're always welcome to contact us again whenever you need support.”

I have responded multiple times saying I provided info / asking for the case to be kept open, but it’s been a week.

What are others seeing?

I used to have my diamond button set to toggle regen on/off. After experimenting, I don’t see a reason to use automatic regen. With regen on, the car slows down regardless of whether it makes best sense, and then takes power to get back to speed. With regen off, I can choose to coast or use the brake pedal for “manual regen” as the situation dictates. My understanding is that braking is 100% regen at first, and only blends in mechanical braking only as you press harder. It might not be ideal for those who coast down 10 mile long hills and don’t want to sit on the brake pedal, or don’t want to have to think about it, but my range numbers are a little better and I prefer the increased control.

Am I missing something? What you have you found?

I use HomeBridge on a Raspberry Pi. It’s not hard to setup and maintain, but now I’m to the point where it’s time to perhaps update the latest Pi / Linux. I can probably live without some integrations but I like the ability to have timers that trigger when you turn something on. Example- when turned on from the smart switch, bathroom fan runs for 30 minutes and then turns off. I’ve tried using HomeKit automations converted to shortcuts without luck.

Any elegant solutions which do t require another server?