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See why.The Best Infrared Thermometers
Infrared thermometers let you take cookware temperatures instantly. Does it matter which one you buy?
By Published May 6, 2022.
Top Picks
See Everything We Tested
What You Need To Know
The best infrared thermometers are accurate under controlled conditions, easy to set, and comfortable to hold. They allow you to adjust for different emissivity values, have high distance-to-spot ratios, and provide highly visible laser guides. Our favorite is the ThermoWorks Industrial IR with Circle Laser, which ticked all these boxes. We also recommend the Etekcity Infrared Thermometer Laser Grip 1022 as our Best Buy. It has a slightly undersized handle and a simpler laser guide, and it’s not quite as accurate as our favorite, but it'll still give you useful, reliable ballpark temperatures. And at a third of our winner’s price, it’s a very respectable no-frills option.
What You Need to Know
Infrared thermometers give you the surface temperature of any object quickly and can do so from relatively far away without making contact with the object itself. They’ve long been used in industrial scenarios to help find hot or cold spots that indicate problems in machinery, ducts, plumbing, or other building systems. In recent years, they’ve become more common in commercial kitchens as well. We were curious to find out whether they were useful for home cooks, so we bought a range of models and put them to the test.
We were intrigued by what we found. A few things to note: Because infrared thermometers measure surface temperature, not internal or air temperatures, they can’t tell you whether your steak is done (you’ll need an instant-read or meat thermometer for that) or whether your oven has preheated sufficiently (you’ll need an oven thermometer for that).
More critically, they don’t always report temperatures as accurately as an instant-read thermometer does—in our tests, even the most accurate models sometimes gave temperature readouts that were off by as much as 100 degrees. This is not necessarily the fault of the thermometer. Under controlled conditions, many infrared thermometers are perfectly capable of being accurate. But in real life, the thermometers are sensitive to a host of factors that can interfere with their ability to measure temperatures correctly. These can include the angle at which you use the thermometer, the shininess of the object whose temperature you’re measuring, the humidity/clarity of the surrounding air, and the temperature of the thermometer itself during use.
There are measures you can take to ensure more accurate results (see “What’s the best way to use my infrared thermometer?”). However, it’s best not to think of infrared thermometers as tools of absolute measurement that will give you the exact surface temperature of the object. Instead, consider them tools that give you ballpark tempe...
Everything We Tested
Highly Recommended
- Accuracy:: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Comfort: 3 stars out of 3.
Our favorite infrared thermometer was the most accurate we tested. Its handle was comfortable for hands of all sizes to grip. And we loved its large, highly visible bull’s-eye laser guide, which made it especially easy to see where we were aiming, even in bright daylight. We just wish that its buttons were a little easier to press—they’re a bit small and stiff—and that it were simpler to change certain settings, though a handy primer is printed on one side of the thermometer.
- Accuracy:: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Comfort: 2.5 stars out of 3.
This industrial infrared thermometer was very accurate under controlled conditions and had an interface that made it simple to change settings or emissivity values. Its buttons were easy to press, too. And we liked that it used two lasers to show us the outer limits of the area being measured. It’s quite expensive, though, and its handle is thick, so smaller-handed users struggled to grip it and press the trigger comfortably.
- Accuracy:: 3 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 2 stars out of 3.
- Comfort: 3 stars out of 3.
A slightly simpler version of our winner, this infrared thermometer had a single laser beam and an interface that was actually a bit easier to navigate. It was almost as accurate as our favorite, too, and its handle was comfortable for hands of different sizes to grip. Our one gripe? It had tiny, stiff buttons that were hard to press repeatedly, as you might need to when adjusting the emissivity value.
Recommended
- Accuracy:: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Comfort: 2.5 stars out of 3.
This infrared thermometer had a simple, easy-to-navigate interface. It was a touch less accurate than we’d like under controlled conditions but was still within a reasonable margin of error for temping pizza ovens and the like. Its two lasers did a good job of showing us the outer limits of the area where temperatures were being measured. The handle is pretty short, though, so it was a little harder for even small hands to get a comfortable grip on it. However, it’s a solid option for the price.
Recommended with reservations
- Accuracy:: 2 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Comfort: 2 stars out of 3.
We loved how easy to use this simple, no-frills infrared thermometer was. It had a great bull’s-eye laser guide, and a single button allows you to change from Celsius to Fahrenheit; otherwise, there were no settings we could have adjusted even if we’d wanted to. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a downside to that. Under controlled conditions, the thermometer was decently accurate. But because it reads all objects at a fixed emissivity value of 0.95, it was significantly less accurate than adjustable-emissivity thermometers when we used it to measure the temperatures of shinier cookware—off by as much as 175 degrees in one test. It also has a big, thick handle that was hard for smaller hands to grip comfortably.
Not Recommended
- Accuracy:: 1 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 2.5 stars out of 3.
- Comfort: 3 stars out of 3.
This thermometer was comfortable to hold and relatively easy to operate, though it required a slightly less intuitive maneuver to adjust emissivity values. Unfortunately, it struggled to measure higher temperatures accurately, even under controlled conditions. And after we used it to measure the temperature of a hot skillet on the grill, exposing it to higher heat, it temporarily stopped working properly, with temperature readings fluctuating wildly as we pressed the trigger.
- Accuracy:: 1.5 stars out of 3.
- Ease of Use: 3 stars out of 3.
- Comfort: 2.5 stars out of 3.
With limited extra features, this infrared thermometer was very easy to use. It was also fairly comfortable to hold, though it was a bit harder to get a grip on its slick plastic handle than it was with other models. Under controlled conditions, the thermometer was reasonably accurate. Unfortunately, because we couldn’t adjust emissivity values to match the materials whose temperatures we were measuring, readouts were much less accurate on shinier cookware—off by as much as 182 degrees in one case.
Reviews you can trust
Reviews you can trust
The mission of America’s Test Kitchen Reviews is to find the best equipment and ingredients for the home cook through rigorous, hands-on testing. We stand behind our winners so much that we even put our seal of approval on them.
Miye Bromberg
Miye is a senior editor for ATK Reviews. She covers booze, blades, and gadgets of questionable value.
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