The Quirky + GE Refuel inspires confidence without enthusiasm

The Refuel from Quirky + GE moves the smart home to the patio. The concept of the Refuel is simple: it helps you prepare for grilling season by checking the amount of propane you have left in the tank for your gas grill. You’ll be able to see this information from any smart device, anywhere, via Quirky’s Wink app. You can even customize alerts so you’re notified if your gas starts running low.

The readings, given in quarters of a tank, are imprecise, more so than the ones you’d get from the readily available pressure gauges that do the same task for $10 to $20. Those gauges hook to the nozzle of your tank and are compatible with any gas grill configuration. In fact, plenty of modern gas grills include a gauge of their own. The Refuel gets its measurements through weight, and you’ll need a standard 20 lb tank that doesn’t hang from the grill to use it.

Still, the Refuel only costs a little more as you can purchase it at Home Depot for $30. 10 extra bucks is quite reasonable when you consider that the Refuel is the only one that offers connectivity. It claims to do one task, and it does it well enough to be useful. It’s definitely excessive, and won’t wow you, but for those couple times a year when you’re at a hardware store trying to remember if you need propane, the Refuel can come to the rescue.

Check your grill on the go with Quirky+GE’s Refuel (Pictures)
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Home Depot offers the discounted price of $30 for the Refuel, so if you’re interested, I’d recommend shopping there. You can also purchase it for $50 on Quirky’s website, but again, there’s no reason to pay that extra $20 for the same product. These are the only two place you can obtain the Refuel, but you can get it shipped internationally. The price converts to £17.50 and AU$32 for comparison.

For a smart device, the Quirky + GE Refuel is extremely simple. Most connected devices have lots of hidden functionality that you can use for energy saving, convenience, or just cool factor. The Refuel has none of this. It’s not compatible with IFTTT, the app-based service (“if this, then that”) for creating smart recipes. It won’t hook to other devices to allow you to flash the lights or turn off the TV when you’re running low. It measures your fuel. That’s it.

Fortunately, the setup mirrors this simplicity. The primary piece of the device looks like a donut. Place this under your propane tank and attach it via heat resistant cord to a puck-shaped sensor. You can’t get the sensor too hot, but it is magnetic. The cord is long enough so you can easily place your propane tank under your grill compartment and stick the sensor to one of the legs. Just make sure to install the included batteries in the sensor first.

From there, download the Wink app on your iPhone or Android device, and it’ll walk you through the rest with helpful step by step directions and pictures. You will need a mobile device with internet access and an available Wi-Fi signal. The app asks you for the name and password of this signal, then starts a countdown on your phone followed by a series of flashes. You’ll hold your flashing phone over the sensor at this point, and it’ll use built in photocells to pick up the information it needs and connect. This connection method is common on Quirky products, and it works well.

To complete the process, you’ll need to find the tare weight of your tank by finding the number listed after “TW” or “T.” The donut piece is a scale for your tank, and once you tell it the tare weight, which is the weight of the tank without fuel, it performs the simple calculation of subtracting that from the total to determine how much of your standard 20 lbs of propane you have left.

It shows you this information in a display on the app, or when you tap the sensor. The app allows you to establish push notifications or emails and lets you set the threshold where you’d like to receive the alert. Unfortunately, you can’t automatically set multiple thresholds, say at half a tank then again at a quarter, but it’s easy enough to switch it manually after you pass the first mark.

Additionally, the app tends to get mixed up as you move from screen to screen. You can pull up the tank specific settings and set your alerts from there. You can also set them from the Wink control panel where you can tinker with alerts on all of your Wink-compatible devices. Unfortunately, the settings in the Wink control panel aren’t as detailed as they are when dealing with the specific device, and if you alter anything there, you’ll overwrite your more detailed preferences.