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Why you can’t buy a thermapen on Amazon (2016)
- re 6y ago(2016) The warning banner mentioned in the first paragraph doesn't appear to be on the Thermoworks website anymore. However, it looks like you still can't buy a Thermapen on Amazon.
- Finnucane 6y agoBuying direct from Thermoworks is not a great difficulty.
- re 6y agoSure; I'm just trying to clarify which parts of the blog post are still accurate.
- pacificmint 6y agoThe banner might be gone, but the first row under the carousel contains a big box with an 'Amazon Warning' which leads directly to this blog post.
- re 6y agoGood call out, I didn't notice that.
- terandle 6y agoArticle is from 2016. Searching Google/Amazon these complaints seem to have been resolved since this was posted.
- secabeen 6y agoThey may have finally gotten setup with Amazon Brand registry. As a past seller of used items (camera gear, electronics, and the like) on Amazon, there are large categories that I can't sell anymore, due to Brand protections that prohibit all sales by non-authorized parties, even just simple used goods that I was the original purchaser of.
- mixologic 6y agoThey havent, or at least any search on 'thermapen' or 'thermoworks' does not list that as a brand in the sidebar.
- carabiner 6y agoReally? On Amazon US, I still can't see any Thermoworks Thermapens available for sale. Just lots of similar devices.
- freyir 6y agoYeah, it’s just a bunch of cheap (and some not-so-cheap) knockoffs.
- nimos 6y agoCannot say enough about their customer support. In 1:45 I called and got a replacement part shipped to me free of charge. That's one minute, 45 seconds. About 30s of that was me telling them I had ordered something earlier that day and them checking if it had shipped already. Great products as well.
- waheoo 6y agoAmazon / eBay arbitrage is a thing. Made some really good money until my Amazon prime account got banned.
- wmf 6y agoYou're the reason we can't have nice things. Or not really you, but Amazon's marketplace business model that enabled your arbitrage. IMO the value from marketplace arbitrage and FBA "entrepreneurship" is less than the market damage caused by counterfeiting.
- waheoo 6y agoThat's fucking rich. Amazon was built on dropshipping. It's the same damn thing. Every bookseller on Amazon and eBay buys their books from one of 4 major publisher.
- mbesto 6y agoHas anyone else started to change their buying habits to buy direct from brands websites instead of buying on Amazon? I simply don't trust Amazon for certain purchases. I feel like it's actually made me trust brands more instead of commoditized products.
- cammikebrown 6y agoI haven't used Amazon in over 18 months.
- Waterluvian 6y agoI think you'll get a lot of one variety of responses so I feel compelled to share: I don't dismiss any of the concerns regarding Amazon and authenticity and quality. But I have yet to have it affect me after hundreds of purchases for many thousands of dollars. Maybe it's just the kinds of things I buy. Maybe I don't notice the occasional knock off. Maybe I'm just naturally good at avoiding dark corners. As a result I haven't changed my behaviour at all.
- jghn 6y agoI take the approach of how big a deal it is if I get a counterfeit. If not a big deal and/or it’s likely all coming from the same Chinese factory anyways I just go through Amazon. If I want to maximize the chance that I get the real deal I try to get as close to the source as possible
- callmeal 6y ago>I take the approach of how big a deal it is if I get a counterfeit. You could lose your global entry / TSA precheck privileges. [0] https://www.racked.com/2018/1/8/16849298/amazon-counterfeits-global-entry-customs https://www.racked.com/2018/1/8/16849298/amazon-counterfeits...
- themacguffinman 6y agoWell do you actually verify the authenticity of your purchases? It depends on the product category somewhat, some categories are absolutely rampant with Amazon knockoffs in a way that you literally cannot avoid by scrutinizing listings or eyeballing it. The first and only PC thermal paste that I bought on Amazon was from an official listing but I was delivered a straight up knockoff. The thermal paste company is a common knockoff target so they provide serial numbers that you can use verify the authenticity of your purchase. The knockoff product had the audacity to include a fake serial number, presumably because they know most people wouldn't bother checking. The knockoff paste is a slightly different shade of gray, but I only know that because I had previously owned a (verified) authentic paste as a point of reference.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jjeaff 6y agoThe real reason they don't want their thermometers sold on amazon is because they are merely official US distributors of the Thermapen which is made by a British company, ETI. https://thermometer.co.uk/99-thermapen-thermometers https://thermometer.co.uk/99-thermapen-thermometers You can buy them from European distributors in bulk for less than MSRP and sell them for the same price as thermoworks on amazon and still make a profit. The only reason they were going for $179 previously is because thermoworks was buying the thermometers from sellers and reporting them as counterfeit. Thus making it difficult for sellers to sell them which keeps supply low. They have fraudulently filed copyright removals and counterfeit accusations on amazon multiple times for Thermapen listings that don't use the "thermoworks" name. You can see that thermoworks does not own the Thermapen trademark. https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:hvpe5e.3.2 https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4803:hv... Edit: apparently, you can't link to a trademark search directly, so you would need to go to the basic search and enter"Thermapen". https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lang=english&p_d=trmk https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/gate.exe?f=login&p_lang=engli...
- thefourthchime 6y agoWow! Hackernews always delivers the real goods!
- randompwd 6y agoNot really. OP later confirmed: > jjeaff 2 hours ago [–] > It happened to me. The name of the purchaser came up in a Google search as an employee of Thermoworks. reply A disclaimer in his initial post would have been far more appropriate. Not so much savvy consumer as much as it he is disgruntled former competitor.
- namdnay 6y agonot only that, but they seem to be ignoring any questions related to warranties..
- 5y ago
- happytoexplain 6y agoThermapen is fantastic - it really reads in a second or two. For years I was resigned to the fact that "fast read" thermometers take nearly 10 seconds and fall apart, after buying a bunch from Amazon. I've had the same experience with other kinds of things. For many categories, Amazon simply does not sell high quality products - at all. You have to find the brands using your own research (good luck getting past the top-10-of-2021 hell hole), then buy directly from them. My impression is that it used to be that it was only this hard to discover sources for obscenely high end products. Now it's the case for anything that isn't ultra-cheap garbage.
- bluedino 6y agoI gave my Thermapen to someone as a gift, ended up buying a $20 one on Amazon and don’t miss it one bit.
- throwawaysea 6y agoI've certainly been bitten by other types of counterfeit items on Amazon, and would definitely not purchase something like a Thermapen on there simply because I couldn't be sure I was getting a genuine product. For companies like this, I can also see how it would be a disadvantage to have large numbers of Chinese knockoffs featured next to their product for a lot less. Personally I've changed my shopping habits to never shop on Amazon unless I can't get that item any other way. Almost everyone has reasonable shipping times, and I don't need 1-day delivery or whatever new decadent level of convenience they're offering. Purchasing directly from a manufacturer or from other retailers gives me more confidence that I am buying a real product. Finally I also don't like the idea of giving Amazon as much power as it has - I'd rather avoid fueling their middleman role and reward innovative small companies directly.
- tempestn 6y agoI blame Google here as well. Their practice of selling ads on searches for trademarked brand names of competitors, forcing brands to pay for their own ads to (only partially, as seen here) mitigate the negative effects is clearly predatory. I wouldn't even expect them to necessarily proactively screen for these cases, but it should at least be possible to demonstrate that you're using the trademark being advertised on (by demonstrating that you own the .com, or by submitting a trademark registration number), and henceforth prevent anyone else from advertising on that keyword. Of course, Google has a financial incentive not to do that.
- wmf 6y agoIt depends. It's legal and IMO ethical to use another company's trademark if you're an authorized distributor or a competitor using the trademark in a non-scammy way. For example, a "Better than Thermapen" ad would be a legit (if weak) form of competition.
- tempestn 6y agoUsing that sort of ad copy is fine IMO. What I take issue with is advertising using competitors' brands as keywords, so when someone searches for "Thermapen", your ad comes up above their organic result.
- sellyme 6y agoEh, in some markets trademark genericisation would mean that someone searching [BrandName] might genuinely be looking for any product that fills roughly the same function. If I google "Blu Tack" I don't care if I get the stuff made by Bostik, and I don't even know what the generic term for that product __is__. Maybe you could argue "well, that's the reward [Brand] gets from insanely successful organic marketing and/or being first to market", which I suppose has some merit, but I don't think it's inherently unethical to market at brands in that context.
- tempestn 6y ago
- a_bonobo 6y agoBirkenstock had a similar story - too many resellers, lots of counterfeit trash, so they stopped working with Amazon (they still work with Amazon subsidiaries though) https://footwearnews.com/2020/business/retail/birkenstock-amazon-zappos-relationship-1202966120/ https://footwearnews.com/2020/business/retail/birkenstock-am...
- annexrichmond 6y agoI've owned a Thermapen for many years now and extremely happy with it. I brew beer, roast coffee, smoke meat, bake, etc. and accuracy is really important to me. I've gone through so many thermometers before I got this. My breaking point was when I owned 3 random ones from Amazon and they all gave me different readings, and they weren't even linearly different either -- like at 140ºF it would be 15-20º apart and at boiling it was 5-10º, so it was impossible to infer the true temp. I tossed a batch of beer down the sink out of frustration because of this.
- fred_is_fred 6y agoSeconded. This is one of the things you buy in life and keep forever and are never unhappy with it. Worth every cent.
- warmfuzzykitten 6y agoAgree. I bought one in February 2012 on Amazon "Sold by: ThermoWorks, Inc.", apparently before counterfeits became an issue. It's fast and accurate and still working fine.
- jjeaff 6y agoI don't think counterfeits for Thermapen have ever been a problem. Just unofficial distributors selling Thermapen from ETI or reselling after purchasing from Thermoworks.
- randompwd 6y agoHow can you state this? You've commented multiple times and only once disclaimed that you were a former competitor to Thermoworks trying to sell the thermapen also. You are poisoning this conversation. PUT A DISCLAIMER IN YOUR COMMENTS.
- frakkingcylons 6y agoNo need to shout.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- acomjean 6y agoAt least a couple years ago (when I bought a thermo-pop from thermopen as a gift) you couldn't buy them from amazon. Though the Amazon "review of thermometers" still list the thermopen as a top pick is is unavailable to buy [1]. They removed the thermo-pop which works quite well. [1]https://www.amazon.com/ospublishing/story/e5498f9e-e69c-442b-a704-e20393166aa3/ https://www.amazon.com/ospublishing/story/e5498f9e-e69c-442b... maybe its SEO? But there it is.
- WaitWaitWha 6y agoWhat risk should consumer worry about more? Increased risk of PII & financial data loss, or increased risk of purchasing fake & overpriced products?
- alliao 6y agoIf you are pedantic AND loves experimenting, ThermaPen will at the same time ruin your life and make you so much happier. The first week I got my thermapen I made and drank so much tea I was getting high from caffeine. Then came endless number of over baked chickens; still a folklore in my house the winter where chicken was plenty and oven always roaring. My kids use it to assess how cooked chicken nuggets are. I even wrapped it in foil once to check automatic transmission fluid temp in a pinch (don't tell my wife). It reads as fast as it claims. It works consistently and without fail.
- mleonhard 6y ago> We DO have carefully selected, authorized resellers. USA is a free market. Everyone is authorized all the time to sell every safe product. The term "authorized reseller" is a linguistic manipulation which benefits manufacturers at the expense of everyone else in society. > We cannot vouch for the quality of products sold by unauthorized resellers, therefore, we cannot provide warranty or technical support on any products sold by unauthorized resellers. This is not true in California. Manufacturers must honor the warranty on all products they originally sold in USA, no matter who later re-sold it. And for products they sold for >$99, they must provide technical documentation for 7 years. I wrote about this in [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24426635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24426635
- bdwalter 6y agoFor what its worth, I've bought 5 of these. 2 for myself, and 3 I've given as gifts. They're amazing and have completely changed the way I cook. Nothing compares.
- ahepp 6y agoMakes me wonder. My Thermapen sucks. I got it as a gift 5-10 years ago, and it seemed to come in nice official packaging. It has never met the settle time claims.
- katbyte 6y agoIt’s probably either counterfeit or defective
- timvdalen 6y agoWhat have you tried it on? Mine works extremely fast when it's _in_ something that it can read (like meat, or hot oil), but the Thermapen doesn't work for air temperature (not enough heat conduction, I would guess). I also have a ThemoWorks/ETI ChefAlarm, and the difference in read time between the two are very apparent.
- s0rce 6y agoIf you wave it around frantically in air it works well enough, certainly not the intended application and if that is your main use then there are better tools.
- Reason077 6y agoMine works well enough for taking air temperature. Obviously not instant read, but if you leave it out for a minute or two before reading it, it gives pretty accurate results. (I guess that's no different from any ordinary air thermometer?)
- timvdalen 5y agoYes, you are correct, I was just talking about the 'instant read' part of it.
- danspots 6y agoDid anyone else just buy one?
- jeffbee 6y agoEvery time this article shows up here or on Twitter I email them to complain about my broken thermapen, which stopped working 11 years ago after I owned it for only a year. Over the years they've changed the supposed contact address from service to support to techsupport but one thing remains the same: they never answer. From a company that makes such a big deal about how great their support is, all I have from them is a broken expensive thermometer and silence.
- szc 6y agoI do own a much older generation Thermapen - the automatic switch is failing, so I need to open it up and fix it... but I do find it a useful tool. For the HN angle, my understanding on how these devices get such a fast reading is to have a decent calibration of the thermal mass of the probe tip, some reasonably quick and precisely timed readings and then using some math to interpolate the exponential curve to predict what the probe temperature is. After a few seconds thermal equilibrium is reached, but it is likely you've already been looking at something close to the final value. [edit] after doodling on paper, not sure it is necessary to know the thermal mass of the probe. Time to do some experiments!
- tonyb 6y agoIf you don't want to fix it yourself Thermoworks will repair it for next to nothing. I think I paid like $10 to have one with a similar issue fixed. Normally it is something with the case around the pivot point that causes it to stop turning on (try squeezing it in that area to test that theory). The speed compared to most other thermometers is that that is uses a thermocouple vs a thermistor. The cheaper ThermoPop uses a thermistor and takes about twice as long to get a reading.
- mourner 6y agoAs someone who got heavily into baking bread / pastry and occasionally meat during the pandemic, I can't recommend Thermapen enough — it's the ultimate cooking thermometer. Also, I live in Europe so I ordered it from the UK, and ETI's support is awesome and they ship really fast.
- Reason077 6y agoHere in the UK, ETI Ltd (the manufacturer of Thermapens) often sells refurbished units cheaply through eBay. I’ve bought several this way and they are fantastic!
- 3guk 6y agoThanks for the tip, just purchased one of the eBay refurbs - always happy to buy manufacturer refurbished items.
- didibus 6y agoETI Ltd (the actual manufacturer) also sells them on Amazon.co.uk https://www.amazon.co.uk/sp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B01MQN9MLL&isAmazonFulfilled=1&ref_=dp_merchant_link&seller=A3UFT4HUOFIA50 https://www.amazon.co.uk/sp?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B01MQN9MLL&i...
- Grustaf 6y agoHow can a thermometer cost 79 dollars, and who is actually willing to spend that?
- Pathogen-David 6y agoI was/am! It's an instant thermometer, it shows the temperature reading in less than a second or two. They're really useful for cooking. I'm sure there are cheaper brands which are just as good, but Thermapen has brand recognition among home chefs. (Probably mostly due to America's Test Kitchen's endorsement of it.)
- Grustaf 6y agoAlright, yeah I guess it makes more sense that speed is the selling point, I mean cheap thermometers are also quite accurate.
- Cerium 6y agoI have one, the speed is indeed the selling point. You can slowly insert the thermometer and find the coldest point. It is also so fast and easy you can use it where you would never bother before - such as checking to see if you microwaved your food enough.
- s0rce 6y agoI routinely used one and it lasted 10 years. I recently replaced it. Few $/yr seems like a decent deal. Its nice to use, reads quickly and apparently accurately.
- jonplackett 6y agoThis might be an unpopular opinion. I bought a Thermapen back when they were new. It was Good! It measured temperature fast. Then it broke, and I bought a cheap one. And it’s basically completely the same. Actually more reliable - the thermapen stopped turning on reliably when I pulled the needle out. This doesn’t mean it’s Ok what Amazon are doing, or for companies to rip them off. But I don’t think most people (any people?) need to spend that much money on a thermometer anymore.
- tonyb 6y agoIf you still have the Thermapen they will likely replace it or repair it for free or cheap (like $10).
- jonplackett 6y agoDid not know that! Thanks! My new one probably cost less than that anyway though.
- tristor 6y agoMy Thermapen Mk4 is one of the best kitchen purchases I've made, and that's quite a statement considering my spend on kitchen gadgets, tools, etc. People buying knockoffs or trying to go with lesser options are the perfect example of being "penny wise and pound foolish". For $65 shipped on sale, it was well worth the cost, and absolutely is world's better than any of the lesser options I tried before. Getting a rib roast just right, making candy, and doing BBQ are all areas where it's excelled and I've struggled with prior options. One thing I've learned across all my many hobbies and in my professional life is that it's always worth the money to buy quality tools. They last longer, work better, and reduce the likelihood of error and failure in your work. There's a reason I don't buy junk, and I thought I could get away with it at first with cooking and learned the hard way not to. Now I have a Thermapen Mk4 along with other proper cooking tools, and it's massively upped my game and simplified the task of pulling off complex recipes.
- Spacemolte 6y agoI wholeheartedly agree. I have tried the cheaper stuff which when it breaks for no reason after a few years, is not really cheap at all. I use mine for bbq, meats, egg based sauces, baking, and probably a few other things that I didn't plan on using it for when i bought it. What other tools have you spent a little extra on to get quality, if you don't mind me asking :)
- azinman2 6y agoNot the OP, but in the kitchen, knifes. Makes a huge difference. Tips for inexpensive but quality kitchen tools: The iSi basics silicone spatula is the best spatula that you could ever use, and is like $11 on Amazon. Get the larger version. Don’t buy non-stick pans. Get cast iron and/or carbon steel, learn how to use it, and you’ll get non-toxic non-stick performance in a pan that you can give your grandkids when you die. Carbon steel is always inexpensive, and with cast iron the price goes up to have a nicer finish but is quite usable even at $25.
- tristor 6y ago> What other tools have you spent a little extra on to get quality, if you don't mind me asking At this point, pretty much everything. It's on my on-going todo list to write an article for my site about it since I added a cooking section awhile back. I found a community that's apparently been around a long time in Chowhound and that exposed me to a lot of the details, and I bought some representative cheaper items to experiment with and I learned a lot. Among other things I learned why gas is better than electric for a stovetop and the shortcomings of induction electric burners, which I had previously thought were marvelous. During the course of 2020 I really took cooking seriously and decided to go all-out, enrolled in online culinary school in my free time and learned how to do all the things I had previously neglected. I'm not a pro cook, this is just for at home, but with new techniques and new understanding of what is available it became really obvious what the shortcomings of my tools were and where it was making certain recipes I wanted to try impossible or massively more difficult. The short version of what I would probably write is that your priority order for paying for quality should be pretty much: 1. Knives 2. Cookware 3. Ovenware 4. Anything else that is exposed to heat 5. Everything else The most interesting thing I discovered though is that quality is more about materials and construction than price, and a lot of the best stuff is actually really affordable if you buy through restaurant supply houses instead of on Amazon or similar. Additionally, many of the best quality products aren't sold in the US for odd reasons, especially in Cookware, or at least are hard to come by. Personally I ended up with a pretty eclectic collection of cookware because cookware sets might get you where you need to go, but are never going to be optimal for each item. For instance I found that for doing a lot of stocks and soups, a disc-bottom stock pot (Fessler is my preferred brand there) was significant better than other options because it made heat control easier to prevent burning the soup and made it heat so evenly it didn't require constant stirring. But by the same token when I wanted a good saucepan, clad stainless steel is better than all other options, and for a skillet it's hard to beat single-piece construction carbon steel or cast iron, although the 7-layer clad stuff is close. For a dutch oven nothing beats enameled cast iron. In my opinion for disc-bottoms, Fessler is the good stuff, for clad it's All-Clad or Demeyere, for cast iron it should be Field or Lodge, for enameled cast iron it should be La Creuset or Staub, and for carbon steel I'm a huge fan of Solidteknics. Unfortunately, no cookware set is going to be this exact, so it's better to buy one piece at a time and focus on the most essential and most used pieces. I think everybody should have a really high quality 2 qt saucier or saucepan, a good skillet, and a dutch oven, and a stock pot. You can get everything else over time if you find you need it. Knives are kind of similar, don't buy a set, buy individual knives. Everybody could honestly get by with just two good knives if they take care of them, a chef's knife or gyuko of some kind and some kind of paring or utility/petty knife. With knives there's a lot to learn but some of the good starters are really reasonably priced and are honestly good enough you may be fine with them for the rest of your life. You really can't go wrong with Tojiro VG10 knives if you want stainless steel or the Dao Vu knives if you want carbon steel and are okay taking care of it. Both are very reasonable, like under $100 for a knife (typical high-end knives are > $300). There's certainly reasons to buy something more, but honestly these are what I use as "daily beaters" in my kitchen and I only have one more expensive knife and while it's fantastic, I use the Tojiro just as much if not more. What I definitely recommend against is buying expensive sets you find at Williams-Sonoma or whatever, because they're very much not worth what you paid for them, even if they're decent. In any case, once you buy quality stuff you really do need to take care of it properly. I have a calendar reminder once a month on a Saturday to do "kitchen maintenance" which is when I do things like treat my Boos cutting board with mineral oil and wax, oven season the carbon steel and cast iron pans, and deep clean all the clad stainless steel stuff with barkeeper's friend or white vinegar, and sharpen my knives, among other things. Other than that, day to day, you should do research on how to take care of things. Cast iron isn't really as finnicky as people make it out to be, for instance, and if you take care of it properly it's really amazing to cook with, knives are easy to care for properly as well. For the most part the main thing is most of the quality stuff is intended to be hand washed, not go in a dishwasher, or if it's dishwasher safe you should still rinse and wipe it dry afterwards to ensure it doesn't leave any caustic residues from the dishwasher. The long version of this is something I'll write some day maybe.
- hdkekbro 6y agoI have the Dot (https://www.thermoworks.com/DOT https://www.thermoworks.com/DOT) and it worked great for many months and during that time I cooked lots of perfect pieces of meat in the BBQ and in the oven. Then it started failing and now it works about half the time, which is really frustrating especially when you’re expecting to hear the alarm and it just never rings. No, it’s not the battery.
- JoblessWonder 6y agoHave you reached out to them? I'm not affiliated with them at all but it seems like they really want to provide good customer service and offer a 2 year warranty on the DOT.
- JoeyBananas 5y agoI'm surprised ligma isn't on this list.