PiFire

Raspberry Pi based Smoker Grill Controller

Note: This project is continuously evolving, and thus this readme will likely be improved over time, as I find the inspiration to make adjustments. That being said, I'm sure there will be many errors that I have overlooked or sections that I haven't updated. This project is something I've done for both fun and for self-education. If you decide to implement this project for yourself, and run into issues/challenges, feel free to submit an issue here on GitHub. However, I would highly encourage you to dig in and debug the issue as much as you can on your own for the sake of growing your own knowledge. Also, I have a very demanding day job, a family, and lots of barbecue to make - so please have patience with me.

Warning: The creator of this project takes no responsibility for any damage that you may do to your personal property including modifications to your smoker grill if you choose to use this project. The creator also takes no responsibility for any resulting harm or damages that may come from issues with the hardware or software design. This project is provided for educational purposes, and should be attempted only by individuals who wish to assume all risks involved.

Note: (2025-12-29) Full documentation including hardware and software installation guide are now located here at the http://docs.pifire.io.

Introduction

This project was inspired by user dborello and his excellent PiSmoker project (http://engineeredmusings.com/pismoker/ and https://github.com/DBorello/PiSmoker). I encourage you to check it out and get a rough idea of how this all works. This particular project was built around a Traeger Texas smoker grill platform, but should work for most older Traeger models (or other brands with similar parts like the older Pit Boss) built with similar parts (fan, auger, and igniter). I've built the code in a way to be somewhat modular & extensible such that you can replace the grill platform with your own specific platform instead. Newer Traeger grills with their newer wifi enabled controllers have DC components (instead of the AC Fan / Auger) and aren't covered by this project.

Just as with the PiSmoker project, I had a few goals in mind. I also wanted to have tighter temperature controls, wireless control, and plotting of the grill / meat temperatures. In addition, I wanted to design this project such that original smoker controller could be used if needed. This way, if I wanted to, I could use my controller as a monitoring device for temperatures instead of controlling the temperature and leave that up to the original controller. Basically, it was my fallback plan in case my project didn't work out, or if I wanted to do a quick cook on the Traeger without using the fancy GUI. UPDATE (11/2021) After spending lots of time with PiFire, I've finally removed the original controller in favor of using PiFire exclusively. However, this doesn't mean that you can't still retain your original controller if you want. Both modes work fine.

Features

• WiFi Enabled Access & Control (WebUI) via computer, phone or tablet
• Multiple Cook Modes
  • Startup Mode (fixed auger on times with igniter on)
  • Smoke Mode (fixed auger on times)
  • Hold Mode (variable auger on times) using PID for higher accuracy (multiple PID / Controller options)
  • Shutdown Mode (auger off, fan on) to burn off pellets after cook is completed
  • Monitor Mode - See temperatures of grill / probes and get notifications if using another controller or if just checking the temperatures any time.
  • Manual Mode - Control fan, auger and igniter manually.
  • Prime - Allows you to prime the firepot with pellets prior to a cook.
• Supports several different OLED and LCD screens
  • SSD1306 OLED Display
  • ST7789 TFT Display (240x240 resolution supported, ST7789V experimentally supported)
  • ILI9341 TFT Display (320x240 resolution only)
  • ILI9488 TFT Display (480x320 resolution)
  • DSI Touch Display - Requires Raspberry Pi with DSI interface (non-Pi Zero) and is resource heavy, so Pi 3B+ or later recommended
• Physical Button Input / Control (depending on the display, three button inputs)
• Encoder support for, so you can control your grill with a spinny knob.
• One (1) Grill Probe and Many Food Probes
  • Tunable probe inputs to allow for many different probe manufacturers
  • Supports the ADS1115 ADC, ADS1015 ADC, and MAX31865 RTD devices for measuring probes (Experimental DS18B20 and MCP9600 support added)
  • Probe tuning tool to help develop probe profiles
  • Any number of probe inputs, limited only by the number of devices that the Raspberry Pi can support
  • Virtual Probes to allow you to do things like averaging probes, finding highest and lowest values of certain probes, etc.
  • Inkbird iBBQ and Meater/Meater+ Bluetooth probe support added in v1.9.0!
• Cook Timer - Moved to the Top Bar for Easy Access
• Notifications (Grill / Food Probes / Timer)
  • Supports Apprise, IFTTT, Pushover, and Pushbullet Notification Services and now MQTT!
• Smoke Plus Feature to deliver more smoke during Smoke / Hold modes
• Safety settings to prevent over-temp, startup failure, or firepot flameout (and overload)
• Save temperature history for all probes / set points to a cook file that can be updated with images, notes, and even downloaded to your devices.
• Wood Pellet Tracking Manager - Now includes estimates of pellet usage.
• Pellet Level Sensor Support
  • VL53L0X Time of Flight Sensor (recommended)
  • HCSR04 Ultrasonic Sensor
• Socket IO for Android Application Support (GitHub User @weberbox has made a Android client app under development here: https://github.com/weberbox/PiFire-Android)
• Recipes / Recipe Mode - Integrated recipe creation and a new mode for developing a recipe 'program' that will control the grill for you and follow the recipe that was programmed.
• Lid open detection during hold mode to pause the controller and prevent overshoots.
• ...And much more!

Screenshots & Videos

The dashboard is where most of your key information and controls are at. This is the screen that greets you when you access the PiFire WebUI on your computer, smart phone or tablet in a browser.

For those of us who like to see the data, PiFire allows you to graph and save your cook history. It's also a great way to monitor your cook in realtime.

PiFire also provides an optional Pellet Manager which can help you track your pellet usage, store ratings, check your pellet level if you have a pellet sensor equipped.

This is what PiFire looks like on your mobile device. And in these screen shots you'll notice that we have dark mode enabled. This helps for viewing at night, or just if you like the dark theme better. Personally I think it looks pretty slick.

Below is an example comparison that I did on a real cook of the Traeger controller attempting to hold 275F and the PiFire holding at the same temperature. The difference is very impressive. The Traeger swings massively up to 25F over and under the set temperature. However the PID in from PiSmoker does a great job holding roughly +-7 degrees. And this is without any extra tuning.

Here's a brief YouTube video giving a basic overview of the PiFire web interfaces.

PiFire Overview Video

I recommend at least taking a peek at the PiFire overview video below. It covers the basics of operation, settings and control.

Link to our channel on YouTube

Pictured below is version 2.0 of the hardware w/TFT screen and hardware buttons in a custom 3D printed enclosure.

And if you're interested in seeing more builds from other users, we have a discussions thread here or on Discord (see below) where others have posted pictures of their unique builds.

Full Documentation / Hardware and Software Installation

The full documentation has been moved to a GitHub page here: http://docs.pifire.io

Discord

I've added a discord server here which can be a great resource for all who want to get more information, want to share their own builds, or just chat about pellet cooking. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Updates

• 9/2020 - Initial Release
• 12/2020 - Moved documentation to https://nebhead.github.io/PiFire-Pages
• 11/2021 - Many new features, bug fixes, and improvements. New hardware support etc. which have been in incorporated over the last year, have been merged from the development branch
• 4/2022 - Release v1.3.1 - Another HUGE release with many new features including an updater, a new configuration wizard, bug fixes, Smart Start feature and much, much more!
• 6/2022 - Release v1.3.3 - Lot's of changes for this latest stable release for June 2022. It's been a busy couple of months and we've had a few bug fixes pulled into this latest version, including an installer bug. The display modules have been completely overhauled in this latest release to improve responsiveness and capabilities. We've added a module for the ILI1394 with rotary encoder support, which is a nice option for those who like to use a dial