As pellet grills exploded in popularity over the past five or so years, they attracted consumers that liked the ease of use and convenience of automatic temperature control. They also made smoking meat less intimidating to people with guided recipes.

We’ve since seen digital temperature control come to other types of smokers. Masterbuilt and Oklahoma Joe’s both have digitally controlled charcoal smokers, and on the Kamado front, Kamado Joe released the Konnected Joe.

All of the digitally controlled smokers adjust temperature by managing the fire with a fan to control airflow on the intake side. The exhaust is either manually controlled, or more than likely, left wide open.

There have been accessories in the Kamado grill world, like the SMOBOT, that control temperature through the exhaust vent. They haven’t made their way to OEMs, but that could change in the near future.

Dansons, the parent company of Pit Boss, has a new patent for an automatically controlled exhaust vent to control temperature. While Pit Boss is most known for pellet grills they used to sell Kamado grills too, and the designs in the patent show the innovative exhaust on a Kamado grill. There’s no reason you couldn’t also use a similar design on a pellet grill thour also.

The system that Dansons designed has advantages over other digitally controlled exhaust systems on the market. Other designs have a motor attached to a flat rotating circle exhaust, like you’d see on a kettle grill.

With that design, it allows for much more interaction between the cook chamber and the outside elements. You can see an example of this if you cook with the vent open on a kettle on a windy day. The wind goes right into the grill.

Under the Dansons design it keeps the exhaust cap usually found on Kamado grills that helps lock in the heat. There’s an outer chamber inside the cap between the cook chamber and the outside world that appears to act as an intermediary between the two environments.

There’s also a series of vents and louvres inside the exhaust to precisely adjust airflow. A digital controller adjusts the airflow by rotating the cap on the center axis.

It’s also possible that automatically controlled temperature from the exhaust, rather than the smoker intake, would add to longevity of the grill. Generally, electronics don’t like heat, so a digital controller mounted to a cook chamber like you’d find on some smokers might not be the best place for it in the long run.

Another positive of having an automatically controlled exhaust is it adds to the ease of use and instruction with the grill. I’ve used other automatic charcoal grills that have manually operated exhaust vents with no mention of how to use them in the instruction manual. Knowing the intake fan is controlling the temperature, should the vent be open, closed, halfway open? It’s not mentioned anywhere.

A patent doesn’t always mean the product will make it to market, but it’s a nice design from Dansons. People seemed to generally like the Pit Boss Kamado when it was out, so it would fun to see an innovative version come back. Plus, that’s the one grill type that W.C. Bradley Co., the parent company of Dansons. doesn’t have in their line-up.