In this review
Verdict
What the convenience premium buys
At this price you are not buying a different kind of fire. Every pellet grill runs the same trick: an auger drops fuel into a fire pot, a fan pushes the heat around a barrel, and a controller holds a number while you go and do something else. Nobody has invented a second kind of pellet. What the money buys is everything wrapped around that trick. Capacity, connectivity, and years of warranty.
Capacity comes first. The 970 square inches split into 585 on the main grate and 385 on the upper grate. That is useful room only if your usual cooks fill it. What size pellet grill you need is the better place to decide whether this class is too large for the way you cook.
The other part of the premium is the 10-year limited warranty. Pellet grills contain a controller, igniter, auger motor and fan in addition to the barrel and grates, so warranty length matters. Read the current terms for the coverage on each part rather than treating ten years as one blanket term.
The app still leaves the physical chores to you
Power comes first. A pellet grill is an appliance that happens to burn wood. Check Traeger's cord guidance before choosing the parking spot. If the patio has no suitable outlet, solve that before delivery rather than improvising once the grill is assembled.
Then pellets, which are a consumable and a storage problem at the same time. They swell when damp, and a swollen pellet is what jams an auger. Keep the bag sealed and off a wet floor. Run the hopper down before a long layoff rather than leaving fuel in there all winter to drink the weather.
Then ash. Every pellet grill needs the fire-pot and barrel-cleaning routine in its manual. Let the shutdown cycle finish, disconnect power and wait until the grill is fully cold before cleaning. Do not use an ordinary vacuum around ash that may still contain an ember. Put the grease path on the same list: convection heat and a sloped drip tray move fat somewhere, and somewhere fills up.
This machine exists to talk you out of tending a fire, and the pitch is that you get your Saturday back.
The hopper and pellet sensor work as a pair
A hopper sets the refill schedule. At 24 pounds, this one gives much more fuel margin than a small pellet grill, but the exact runtime still moves with temperature, weather and the pellets.
Judge it by how often you want to check fuel rather than by a promised number of hours. Start a long cook with a full hopper and keep the app's level reading in view.
The app closes part of that loop. WiFIRE puts the grill on your network and into the Traeger App, and a digital pellet sensor reports fuel level to the same screen. That is useful during a monitored long cook, but the sensor does not fill the hopper or make an outdoor fire safe to leave unattended. Treat it as another alert, not permission to cook differently.
Behind that sits a fully digital controller with a full-color display and an RTD temperature sensor in place of a thermocouple. A wired meat probe comes in the box, and the grill also supports Traeger's Bluetooth Meat Thermometer. The included probe makes that upgrade easy to defer.
Searing remains the compromise
Pellet grills build crust with time and a dry surface, not with flame. The searing method here is held high heat at the grates, which is a thin answer for a steak. The dial stops at 500°F. There is no direct flame path.
Pit Boss answers the same weakness on the 700FB2 with a Flame Broiler lever that opens a slot over the fire. There is no equivalent here. If a hard crust over open flame is on your list, the app and larger warranty do not close that gap.
For the low end, Traeger's FAQ describes low-smoke running between 165° and 225°. The Westwood, one shelf down the range, publishes a 180°F minimum.
Delivery and setup need a plan
The failures in this class are electrical and boring. Igniter rods stop lighting. Auger motors jam on damp fuel. Fans get loud, and then they get quiet, which is the worse of the two. Controllers drop off WiFi and then lose the plot entirely. None of it is dramatic, and all of it is why ten years of cover is worth reading before you need it. The other standard failure is rust, and it is self-inflicted: a painted steel barrel left uncovered through a wet winter comes out of it looking every month of its age.
Two weights, one grill. The product page says 174 pounds. Traeger's own support guide says 190 pounds for the same model. Either way it is a two-person lift, so pick the spot before the truck arrives. This is a grill that lives where you build it.
If the grill has to clear a gate, doorway or narrow side yard, confirm the assembled dimensions with Traeger before delivery. The available retail figures describe the shipping carton.
What to check once it is on the patio:
- Look the carton over for damage while the driver is still standing there, not after.
- Follow Traeger's first-start procedure before cooking and stop if ignition does not behave as the manual describes.
- Confirm the pellet sensor reports a level, and that the app and the grill display agree about what it is.
- Pair the app on the network the grill will actually sit on before a long cook depends on it.
- Check the wired probe against ice water so you know what it reads before a brisket is riding on it.
What to budget beyond the grill
Pellets are the recurring line and they never stop. You buy them by the bag and you burn them on every cook, including the startup and the shutdown. The hopper number above tells you how often you carry a bag out to the patio.
A cover is the accessory this class genuinely requires, for the rust reason above. Clean ash only after shutdown, unplugged and completely cold, using the method the manual specifies. The wired probe in the box means another thermometer can wait until you need a second food reading.
Budget for the bag habit before the accessories. Across the ten years that warranty covers, you will spend more on pellets than on everything you bolt to the grill.
Woodridge Pro or Pit Boss 700FB2
The rack figures are comparable here: 970 square inches covers both Traeger racks and 747 covers both Pit Boss tiers. Hoppers run 24 pounds against 21, and warranties run 10 years against 5.
So the premium is not a better grill against a worse one. It buys the app, the pellet sensor, five more years of headline warranty and more grate. Whether that is worth the gap comes down to how often those conveniences help during long, monitored cooks.
Buy the 700FB2 if none of that moves you. It does the set-a-number-and-walk-away job, it has the flame lever the Traeger does not, and it leaves the difference in your pocket. For most people trading up from a gas grill, the searing lever settles the argument faster than the app does.
The Woodridge Pro vs 700FB2 comparison puts the full tradeoff in one place, and the Pit Boss 700FB2 review is the long version of the cheaper case. Shopping inside Traeger's own line instead, Westwood against Woodridge Pro is the other split worth reading. If the app and warranty still do not move you, the Pit Boss is the simpler recommendation.