Comments: We have totally gotten used to carrying a timer around, lest we overcook something we have painstaking prepared and slipped in the oven. Now the clever folks at Taylor have taken this one step further – they can alert us when the food reaches the right temperature, too. Their combination timer/thermometer has a remote pager you can carry around (lanyard included if you are pocketless or beltless) that will beep, vibrate, and blink to let you know that your food is nearly done, almost done, and done.

The unit beeps three times 10 minutes or 20 degrees before your setting is reached, five times 5 minutes or 10 degrees in advance, and constantly until turned off when the time or temperature is reached. You can set both the timer and thermometer for different uses and know which is which, because they signal with a different sound. You can set the pager to vibrate and blink only. It will tell you if it is synchronized with the base unit and it has a range of 200 feet.

One person remarked that it is particularly nice to have this pager when cooking something on the grill out of grilling season, when you are more likely to want to be indoors. You do have to be careful though, as the silicone wire that connects the temperature probe to the base unit cannot stand temperatures above 400°F (205°C) and especially flare-ups.

Since you can see the temperature of your food on the base-station, you don't have to open the oven or grill, conserving heat, and potentially cutting cooking time. Several thermometer settings are pre-set, so it will cook chicken or other poultry to 165°F; pork, lamb, veal, or ground beef to 160°F; fish to 145°F; and beef, from rare at 140°F to well done at 170°F; or will let you alter these settings or set any temperature manually. The thermometer's temperature range is 32°F (0°C) to 450°F (232°C) and switches easily between Fahrenheit and Celsius.

The timer can be set for 39 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds. In setting the timer you can only count up (by hours and minutes), so if you inadvertently pass the time you wanted, you will either have to reset it to zero and start again or cycle through all the hours and/or minutes until you get to the time you want. It doesn't take forever, but it can be tedious.

The pager comes with volume control, and lanyard plus a stand, clip, and magnet for mounting. The base unit also has a clock, can be used without the remote unit, and has a clip for attaching it to your belt and magnets, so you can stick it on the refrigerator or other steel surface. Batteries are included for each unit. Keep track of the pager – like any cell phone with a dead battery or your car keys, it will be hard to find if you leave it in an unlikely spot.