Brisk It Unveils Affordable AI-Powered Smart Grill at CES 2025

Brisk It's new wood pellet grill promises AI cooking at a more affordable price

Generative AI-enhanced gadgets were all the rage in 2024, but something that stood out from last year's more run of the mill announcements was Brisk It's Origin grills and its Vera AI which promised to help you grill food perfectly. Now, at CES 2025, Brisk It is back with new hardware and an AI update. To catch you up on Vera 1.0, Brisk It explained previously its AI is ideal for helping you plan meals - by asking it for meal advice based on what you want to eat, your allergies, and what you have in the fridge - and it can also take control of your compatible grill. You simply tell the AI what you're cooking and it'll handle the temperature. Now Vera 2.0 is set to deliver a serious update, thanks to image recognition. Instead of simply listing ingredients you can snap a picture of them, or snap a picture of a dish or recipe, and Vera can help you plan meals based on the images you submit. It also promises to be a better grilling companion. The big downside of Vera, however, is it's only compatible with Brisk It's AI grills which aren't cheap. The Origin 940 is usually $1,099.99 and the Origin 580 is $849.99 - though we have seen them on sale recently for $200-off and $150-off respectively. Even then that's still pretty pricey, but with Brisk It's new Zelos-450 smart grill you should be able to try AI grilling out at "a much more accessible price" - at the time of writing we don't have a precise price for this grill, but we'll update this article when we know more. The Zelos-450 doesn't just boast AI assistance - which promises to make real time cooking adjustments if you make mistakes, and "reliable, hands-free grilling from start to finish" - but also the same wood-chip grilling experience as other Brisk It grills for a wood-fired flavor finish on your food. In addition it offers 450-square inches of cooking space, and cooking temperatures of 180F to 500F. We're hoping to test the new Zelos-450 smart grill out for ourselves soon. We've heard good things about Brisk It's other AI grills so we're excited to see this one in action, and on that note we're planning to demo the tech at the company's CES booth - so look out for our thoughts on that demo when we publish them and be sure to follow our Tiktok which will have the latest tech from CES.

Brisk It's latest AI-infused smart grill only costs $399

The company is also debuting an update to its Vera AI cooking platform. Brisk It debuted its first AI-enabled smart grill concept at CES last year, and now the company is back with a new, low-cost model for 2025. Dubbed the Zelos 450, this compact unit joins the Origin series machines in the company's lineup. Despite the dramatically lower price of $399, Brisk It still managed to pack in its AI cooking tech to assist in all areas of backyard grilling. The company says its Zelos line of pellet grills were designed to offer its advanced features at a more affordable price. Although the company has only announced the 450-square-inch version at CES 2025, it sounds like a larger option could be on the way. Like Brisk It's other models, the main selling point is the company's Vera generative AI platform. Now in version 2.0, Vera offers image recognition on your phone to construct personalized recipes, replicate completed dishes, make a meal based on photographed ingredients or provide inspiration based on what's in your shopping cart at the store. Every recipe is automated with the grill, which the company says will reduce stress and ensure consistent results. Brisk It says the tech makes BBQ and grilling as easy as asking a question and pressing a button. In fact, the company claims the combination of Vera and the Zelos 450 can even compensate for mistakes like forgetting to baste a prime rib roast. Like most smart pellet grills, the Zelos 450 has Wi-Fi connectivity that allows you to control the grill and monitor progress from anywhere via your phone. The grill also can smoke as low at 180 degrees Fahrenheit and sear at 500 degrees, or anything in between like baking and roasting. The Zelos 450 has a simpler design than Brisk It's Origin series, with a more basic onboard controller and display than those first two models. This makes sense given the much lower price tag. The Zelos 450 will be available in Q1 2025 at Amazon, Home Depot, Walmart, Lowes and directly from the company for $399.

AI's Next Target Is Your BBQ, Thanks to This Smart Grill

How I Avoid Unwanted Shopping Recommendations Based on Past Purchases AI has set its sites on a new and very tasty target. At CES 2025, Brisk It has just introduced its new Zelos-450 Smart Grill with AI technology. Using AI to Make Grilling Easier The pellet grill's Vera 2.0 AI is designed to help you before and during cooking. Using the companion app, you can tap the generative AI for barbecue. You can snap a photo of ingredients or dishes to see a personalized meal plan or recipe. Take a photo of any recipe, and the AI will tweak it for grilling. If you don't know what to cook, take a picture of what you have available and the app will show recipe suggestions. When it's time to fire up the grill, built-in Wi-Fi can help you monitor the progress of the cook, adjust settings, and receive real-time notifications. AI will also step in to help make the cooking as stress-free as possible. Along with precise temperature adjustments, the grill can also dynamically respond to unexpected situations, like if you forget to spritz water on a smoked pork rib. The grill itself has 450 square inches of cooking space. You can cook anywhere between 180 and 500 degrees Fahrenheit, making it a perfect choice for anything from a long brisket smoke or a quick steak sear. A Low-Cost Pellet Grill The Zelos-450 Smart Grill will retail for $399.99 and land in the first quarter of 2025 at Amazon, Home Depot, Walmart, and a number of other retailers. If you're in the market for a pellet grill, that price tag is a definite advantage when compared to other brands like Traeger that easily cost $1,000 or more. While I'm a bit skeptical about how well the AI can truly make my barbecue better, it sounds like an interesting concept, especially when combined with the simplicity of using a pellet grill that always maintains a specific temperature.

CES 2025: This New Smart Barbecue Is the Tech I'm Most Excited About

I've spent the last year using Brisk It's smart barbeque, and now they've made it cheaper, while adding lots of new features. This summer, I tested most of the smart grills on the market, but one rose above the rest: the Brisk It Origin. It turned me from a very occasional griller into a barbecue enthusiast by removing every pain of outdoor cooking. Somehow, Brisk It has topped itself at CES this year, introducing a new grill, the Zelos, which brings the same hardware to the market at a more affordable price. Moreover, the Zelos carries the second generation of the AI engine that makes Brisk It great: Vera 2.0. Brisk It grills are powered by wood pellets, so they have the ability to smoke your food with exceptional precision, but also cook your food at higher temperatures if you're looking for more of a true grill experience without as much smoke. You load the grill hopper with pellets, which is a lot like like any other smoker on the market, and an auger inside the hopper feeds the grill. You can operate the grill two ways: manually, from the display on the grill itself, or from the app. You'll likely end up doing a mixture of both as you get more comfortable with the grill, but I'll say this: Regardless of which method I used, the Origin has lit every single time I've pushed the button this year, easily 50-60 times. I expect the same from the Zelos. There is also a certain amount of giddiness one gets while being able to light a grill from the couch via the app. While most AI-powered cooking devices have apps with recipe generation and cook-time suggestions, you'll actually use the advice that the Brisk It app gives you. It offers an impressively deep recipe bank, so you're likely to get a hit on any barbecue recipe you're looking for, and then it tells you precisely how to prep it, and regardless of whether you took that advice or not, will perfectly cook it for you. You choose the recipe, and send it to the grill. The grill will tell you when to put the food on, you insert a temperature probe, and walk away. The grill will execute the perfect smoke or grilling program, raising temperatures when appropriate, injecting higher smoke, and telling you when to flip the food or when to take it off. It will even turn itself off. So, how could Brisk It get better? Vera 2.0 allows you to take snapshots of your ingredients on the phone and Vera will identify the ingredients and then suggest recipes, and, of course, the perfect way to cook them. Snap a picture of the contents of your fridge, grocery cart, or pantry. It even claims you can take a picture of cooked food you enjoy, and Vera will try to give you a recipe for it (I'd need to test this to believe it; it feels like the sort of AI promise that often fails). Perhaps more importantly, the Zelos is made to be more affordable than the Origin, which, though currently are on sale, are regularly priced at $849 and $1,099. The Zelos promises to be $399, which is dramatically cheaper, but from the looks of it, doesn't sacrifice much on the build of the grill itself. It still looks solid, and I actually might prefer the placement of the display on the Zelos than on the Origin (it looks to be placed much lower on the hopper). I called my Brisk It one of my favorite pieces of smart tech this year -- it's one of those unique pieces of hardware technology that lives up to the hype. Whether you are a confident cook or easily intimidated, great tech like the Brisk It can make you more competent at babecuing. The Zelos will be available for purchase in the next few months online at Amazon, Home Depot, Walmart, Lowes, and BriskItGrills.com

This $400 Brisk It smart grill has generative AI

That's pretty affordable for a smart wood pellet grill -- the cheapest Wi-Fi-controlled offering from Traeger starts at $800, and that doesn't include any generative AI cooking features. The Zelos is also substantially cheaper than previous AI-powered grills from Brisk It, which start at $849.99. Whether you actually want AI to get in between you and your grilling is the bigger question. Brisk It says its Vera AI can "monitor, control, and automate the cook for you" at the push of a button, sending users notification updates on the cooking progress and reminders to do things like wrap or spritz ribs with water. If these prompts are missed or ignored, the AI will automatically adjust the grilling temperature to prevent food from being ruined. Ridiculous as it sounds, the company's earlier models have received some positive reviews for their helpful automation.