The problem with manual temperature checks
Ask any head chef or kitchen manager and they'll tell you the same thing: temperature checks get missed.
Not through laziness — through the relentless pace of a working kitchen. A prep rush at 10am. A delivery that arrives mid-service. A member of staff calling in sick. The paper temperature sheet sat on the clipboard gets overlooked, and at the end of the shift there's a blank row where a reading should be.
That blank row is a problem — not just for compliance, but for food safety. A fridge that crept above 8°C for three hours at lunchtime might not have triggered any alarms, but the food inside has been compromised. Without a record, you'd never know.
This is the gap that Bluetooth temperature probes close.
How automated Bluetooth logging works in CompliChef
KitchenPortal — CompliChef's kitchen management app — integrates directly with two Inkbird* Bluetooth devices to handle temperature monitoring automatically.
IHT-2PS — food probe (spot checks, done automatically)
The IHT-2PS is a handheld food probe. When your team powers it on at the start of a shift, it connects to the KitchenPortal app automatically — no tapping, no pairing, no hunting through Bluetooth menus.
As your team uses the probe to check core temperatures during cooking, each reading is captured by the app in real time. The probe logs the temperature, the time, and it's stored directly against your compliance records. Your team doesn't need to write anything down.
By the end of a shift, you might have 15–20 documented food temperature readings without anyone having picked up a pen.
IBS-TH2 — ambient sensor (continuous fridge and freezer monitoring)
The IBS-TH2 is a small ambient sensor that sits inside a fridge or freezer and broadcasts temperature and humidity readings continuously throughout the day.
KitchenPortal monitors these readings in the background. If a fridge goes above its safe threshold — whether that's a door left ajar, a faulty seal, or a compressor issue — the app triggers an alert and sends a notification email to the manager and owner linked to that site.
At midnight, the app automatically submits the full day's temperature data to your compliance log. Every reading, every hour, captured without anyone having to do a thing. And if connectivity drops at any point during the day, the data is saved locally on the device and synced when the connection is restored.
Why this saves real time
No transcription errors
Paper temperature sheets require someone to read a probe, remember the number, and write it down accurately. Bluetooth logging eliminates that chain. The number on the probe display is the number in your records — because they're the same reading.
Continuous coverage you can't achieve manually
Even the most diligent kitchen team can't realistically check a fridge every 30 minutes during a busy service. Continuous ambient monitoring means your cold storage is watched all day, even when your team is heads-down on service.
Instant manager oversight
Owners and managers can see temperature data across all their sites in real time from the portal — without being on-site. If something goes wrong, you know immediately. Not at the end of the week when someone finally reads the paper log.
Compliance records, ready to go
When an EHO visits, your temperature records are already there: complete, timestamped, and exportable. There's no scramble to find paper logs, no gaps to explain, and no illegible handwriting to decipher.
Why manual checks still matter
Automated logging is a powerful safety net — but it should sit alongside manual practice, not replace it.
**Probes need calibrating.** Any temperature probe — digital or Bluetooth — can drift over time. Regular manual verification against a reference thermometer keeps your readings accurate. If your Bluetooth probe is reading 1°C low and you don't know it, your automated records are consistently wrong in the direction that matters most. **Sensors don't replace the cook's judgement.** An ambient fridge sensor tells you the air temperature inside the cabinet. It doesn't tell you whether a specific dish hit the correct core temperature during cooking, whether a delivery arrived at the right temperature before it went into storage, or whether a product at the front of a shelf is colder than the probe at the back. Those still need a trained member of staff and a probe in the right place. **Automated systems can fail.** Batteries die. Bluetooth drops. Devices get moved. If your kitchen relies entirely on automation and something stops working mid-shift, you need your team to know what to do manually. Regular manual practice means that if the tech has an off day, food safety doesn't. **Regulators expect active monitoring, not passive recording.** A stack of automatically-generated temperature logs is impressive — but an EHO also wants to see that your team understands what those numbers mean and what to do if something is out of range. Manual checks build that knowledge. Automation records it.The right balance
The teams that use CompliChef's Bluetooth probe integration most effectively treat it as a two-layer system:
- Automated logging handles routine fridge and freezer monitoring, captures cooking probe readings in real time, and sends alerts when anything is out of range.
- Manual checks verify the automated data makes sense, catch the things sensors can't measure, and keep the team sharp on food safety practice.
Neither layer replaces the other. Together, they give you the kind of temperature record that takes very little daily effort to maintain but is comprehensive enough to demonstrate genuine due diligence — to your customers, your insurers, and your EHO.
Getting set up
The IHT-2PS food probe and IBS-TH2 ambient sensor are available to order independently and work straight out of the box with KitchenPortal on your managed Sunmi Android device. No additional hardware, no setup fees — just power them on and they connect automatically.
If you'd like to see how it works in practice, get in touch with the team and we'll walk you through a live demo.
*\* Inkbird and the product names IHT-2PS and IBS-TH2 are trademarks of their respective owners. Inkbird is not affiliated with CompliChef. We independently selected and approved these devices based on their performance and reliability.*