In this review
Verdict
Why the Westwood exists
The Westwood answers a fair complaint. For years the app and the long warranty rode along only with the expensive grills, which is a tidy way to keep selling expensive grills. This one drops both down the range: WiFIRE, a wired meat probe in the box, a 7-year limited warranty, 653 square inches across two racks. That pairing is the entire argument.
The published range starts at 180°F. A minimum temperature is trivia right up until low smoke is the reason you bought a pellet grill. Then the bottom of the dial matters.
What the lower price does not buy is the Woodridge Pro's 500°F ceiling, larger cooking surface or 24 pound hopper. Those are the reasons to move up, not a different app experience.
WiFIRE does not manage pellets or ash
A pellet grill is a plug-in appliance that burns wood as a hobby. It needs an outlet within reach of wherever it ends up parked. It needs pellets kept dry, because pellets are compressed sawdust and sawdust swells. A bag left open in a damp garage over winter is the opening scene of auger jam season.
The rhythm is set-and-check, not set-and-forget. You fill the hopper, pick a number and come back to it. Burn rate moves with set temperature, wind and the pellets themselves, so check the 18 pound hopper on long cooks rather than treating it as a guaranteed runtime.
The pellet level sensor stays up the range with the Woodridge line, so plan on checking the hopper the old way, with your eyes, and top it off before any cook that outlasts the evening.
Then there is ash. Every pellet grill drops it in the firepot and needs the cleaning routine in its manual. Let the shutdown cycle finish, disconnect power and wait until the grill is fully cold before opening or cleaning it. Do not put an ordinary vacuum near ash that could still hide an ember.
Plan around the main grate, not the headline total
653 is the number on the box. 428 is the number you cook on. Rack 1 is 428 square inches and Rack 2 is 225. The Woodridge parts list names a Main Grate and an Upper Grate, so treat 428 as the working surface and 225 as real second-tier room for ribs or thighs.
The 428 square inch main grate is the surface to measure against the food and pans you use most. The 225 square inch upper rack adds useful overflow, but it does not turn the Westwood into the larger Woodridge Pro.
If those surfaces run tight, the Westwood XL takes the total to 823 square inches, 540 on Rack 1 and 283 on Rack 2. It keeps the same 18 pound hopper and temperature range and weighs 128 pounds. Compare those surfaces with the larger Woodridge line before paying for space you may not use. The pellet grills and smokers page keeps the other size options together.
Searing is where it gives ground
You are not getting a hard crust off this grill. That is the consequence. The number behind it is 450°F, which sits 50 degrees under the Woodridge Pro and delivers convection heat rather than a flame you can put meat over.
Pellet grills are thermostat-controlled ovens with wood in them. Excellent at smoking, polite at searing. The makers who take that gap seriously fix it with hardware, and Pit Boss does exactly that on the 700FB2 with a Flame Broiler lever that opens a slot over the fire, across a 180 to 500°F range. If a crust off direct flame is on your list, that lever decides this page against the Westwood.
If it is not on your list, 450°F roasts a chicken and finishes ribs, and you were going to sear in a cast iron pan anyway.
Delivery-day checks and routine maintenance
The failure modes in this class are boring and consistent. Augers jam on damp pellets. Firepots fill with ash and the grill starts running cool for no reason you can see. Igniters wear out. Controllers lose the WiFi and want re-pairing at the least convenient hour of the cook. None of that is a knock on this model. It is the entry fee for the category, and a grill whose firepot never gets cleaned will collect every one of those failures faster.
On delivery, work the boring list while the carton is still open. The lid should seat with the gasket line unbroken. The barrel should carry no shipping dents. Follow Traeger's current first-start and burn-in procedure exactly, and stop if pellet delivery, ignition or the wired probe does not behave as the manual describes. That is the cheapest time to find a problem while the return window is open.
Register the grill. Seven years is three short of the Woodridge Pro's 10 and two longer than the 5 on the Pit Boss 700FB2, and in a class where the auger motor and the igniter are the wear parts, that spread is most of what separates these three on paper. Read Traeger's warranty terms for what each part actually carries, because the length is the headline and the exclusions are the article.
What to budget beyond the grill
Pellets are the running cost and they are not optional. You buy them by the bag, forever, and the grill runs on nothing else. Get a sealed bin to keep them in. A damp bag is a dead cook.
A cover earns its money faster here than on a kettle, because there is a hopper full of sawdust and a circuit board sitting out in the weather. Use only the cold-ash cleaning method Traeger specifies, after the shutdown cycle and with power disconnected.
Then there is the space. The published weight is 116 pounds. If the grill has to clear a gate or a narrow side yard, measure the path and confirm the assembled dimensions with Traeger before delivery.
Westwood, Woodridge Pro or the Pit Boss
Buy the Westwood if the app and the warranty are what you are paying Traeger for, and if 428 square inches of main grate covers your cooks. It keeps the core WiFIRE experience without making you buy the Woodridge Pro's extra capacity.
Buy the Woodridge Pro if size is the point: 970 square inches, a 24 pound hopper, a pellet level sensor and a 500°F ceiling, under a 10-year warranty. That is not a better grill so much as more grill. The premium buys capacity you either use or push around the patio for years.
Here is where the loser wins. If neither the app nor the warranty moves you, the Pit Boss case lands harder against the Westwood than it does against the bigger Traeger: less money, a searing lever, and 500°F instead of 450. The 700FB2 comparison makes that argument against the Woodridge Pro, and every point in it survives the swap. Most weekends, the lever beats the app. Your weekends may disagree.