Introduction & Use Case:

There’s nothing like a perfectly smoked brisket to celebrate Father’s Day — unless, of course, your expensive WiFi-enabled Traeger Ridgeline XL, for example, can’t connect to your network. Welcome to the modern dad’s dilemma: your grill is smarter than your first laptop, but getting it online with the WiFIRE app over an Eero mesh network turns into a weekend-long IT support nightmare. I’ve been there. I’ve been tech support — and I still ended up on the phone with Eero, Traeger, and even my ISP, each trying to upsell me or feed me irrelevant solutions. Spoiler alert: none of their advice worked. Let me save you some grey hairs, hours of frustration, and get your Traeger connected — so you can focus on what matters: low-and-slow barbecue and high-efficiency Father’s Day chilling.

In this Post We Will:

• 🕵 Diagnose why your WiFi-enabled Traeger grill refuses to connect — and why the ESP32 chip is to blame.
  

• 🛠️ Walk through a step-by-step Eero guest network setup that works with Traeger’s picky WiFi module.
  

• 🔥 Debunk the useless advice from vendors and support reps (static IPs? Seriously?).
  

• ✔ Offer a tech-savvy dad hack to futureproof your IoT gear, especially if you’ve got a Raspberry Pi in the rack.
  

• ⚡ Bonus round: pipe your Traeger’s grill telemetry into Microsoft Sentinel using Pi-hole DNS logging — because security professionals deserve BBQ data dashboards, too.
  

• 🧠 Ian’s Insights: Why Your Grill’s DNS Requests Might Be More Telling Than the Smoke Signals.
  

• 🔗 List Helpful Links & Resources.
  

🧠 The Real Problem: It’s Not You — It’s the ESP32

🔌 If you’ve tinkered with IoT projects, you’ll recognize the Espressif ESP32 chip buried inside your Traeger. It’s low-power, affordable, and temperamental as hell with modern networks.

👉 Most importantly? ⚠️ It only connects reliably to 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks with simple SSIDs ⚠️ …Not a peep about this from Traeger or Eero support — but it should be Step 1 in their playbook.

💡 The Fix (Tested & Grill-Approved)

✅ Here’s the real-world fix that worked for me — and it will work for you too; How to Connect Your Traeger to Eero Wi-Fi:

• 1. Open the Eero app on your phone.
  
  

• 2. Create a new guest network just for your grill:
  
        - SSID: Keep it short, no spaces, no special characters (e.g., “TraegerNet”)
  
        - Password: Simple and secure (avoid symbols; eg., “Grilluminati”)
  
  

• 3. Set to 2.4GHz only:
  
        - Eero doesn’t natively let you split bands, but you can disable it temporarily in the app.
  
              - Go to Settings » Troubleshooting » Device Won’t Connect
  
              - Select “My Device is 2.4 GHz only” and disable 5 GHz temporarily.
  
              - Go back one step and select “My Device Can’t Detect Wi-Fi 6” to enable Legacy mode.
  
              -This forces devices like your Traeger to connect over 2.4GHz.
  
  

• 4. Reboot the Traeger grill.
  
  

• 5. Open the WiFIRE app, and go through the pairing steps again using the new network. Make sure your phone is also connected to the new grill network.
  
  

• 6. Once paired, you can re-enable 5GHz on your main network and disable Legacy Mode — the grill will stick to 2.4GHz unless it’s factory reset and will reconnect without issue going forward.
  
  

🛑 Avoid These Bad Recommendations (these really happened)

• “Buy a static IP” – Your ISP is upselling. WiFi pairing doesn’t need a public IP address.

• “Move the grill closer to the router” – Not the issue if it’s a band or SSID problem.

• “Buy a wifi extender” - Not a problem if the grill sees the wifi momentarily, just doesn’t stay connected.

• “Change your ISP” - Traeger support is passing the buck.

• “Factory reset your Traeger” – A last resort, not a first step.

👨‍💻 Dad Hack of the Day

If you’re the type of dad who owns a smoker, a server rack, and at least one Raspberry Pi, do yourself a favor and treat all IoT devices like ESP32s: Plan for 2.4GHz, keep SSIDs clean, and never assume the vendor knows what they’re talking about.

🔥 Smokin’ Telemetry: Sending Grill Data to Your SIEM

Once you’ve got your Traeger connected to Wi-Fi and the meat probes are humming along, you might be wondering: Can I send grill telemetry to my Microsoft Sentinel SIEM? Absolutely — and it’s easier than you’d think. Imagine logging every cook, tracking grill behavior across events, or even correlating DNS activity from your Pi-hole to see which devices are phoning home during a cookout. Spoiler: it’s not just the grill calling Traeger — it’s often hitting telemetry servers and CDNs too.

I’ve previously written about onboarding Pi-hole DNS telemetry into Sentinel using a Raspberry Pi: 🔗 Watching the DNS Watcher: Pi-hole Logs in Sentinel

Here’s how you can expand on that setup to capture WiFIRE grill activity 👇

🔧 Steps to Integrate Your Grill with Microsoft Sentinel

• 1. Ensure your Pi-hole is installed and configured as your network’s DNS sinkhole.
  

• 2. Confirm that your Traeger is using Pi-hole as its DNS (check your router or Eero’s advanced DNS settings).
  

• 3. Filter for logs from the Traeger using the MAC address or hostname.
  

• 4. Create custom KQL queries or Sentinel workbooks to visualize:
  

                        - Device check-ins

                        - DNS queries to Traeger telemetry services

                        - Behavioral anomalies (e.g., WiFi dropouts mid-smoke)

🧠 Ian’s Insights: Why Your Grill’s DNS Requests Might Be More Telling Than the Smoke Signals

At a high level, a Pi-hole acts as a local DNS sinkhole, intercepting DNS queries on your network and selectively blocking requests to known ad networks, trackers, or anything else you don’t trust. It effectively becomes your network’s first line of defense — every device, from your laptop to your smart grill, asks the Pi-hole for directions before heading out to the internet. That makes it an ideal spot to monitor device behavior passively, without installing agents or modifying firmware.

For example, once your Traeger Ridgeline XL is online, you can use Pi-hole to log its DNS requests — revealing when it checks in with Traeger telemetry services, content delivery networks, or even unknown third-party services. When combined with Microsoft Sentinel, these logs provide rich visibility into your IoT ecosystem, enabling you to detect odd patterns (like a spike in outbound DNS queries mid-smoke) or even set up alerting for anomalous behavior. Your grill might not be a security risk — but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to log!

In this Post We:

• 🕵 Diagnosed why your WiFi-enabled Traeger grill refuses to connect — and why the ESP32 chip is to blame.
  

• 🛠️ Walked through a step-by-step Eero guest network setup that works with Traeger’s picky WiFi module.
  

• 🔥 Debunked the useless advice from vendors and support reps (static IPs? Seriously?).
  

• ✔ Offered a tech-savvy dad hack to futureproof your IoT gear, especially if you’ve got a Raspberry Pi in the rack.
  

• ⚡ Bonus round: piped your Traeger’s grill telemetry into Microsoft Sentinel using Pi-hole DNS logging — because security professionals deserve BBQ data dashboards, too.
  

• 🧠 Ian’s Insights: Why Your Grill’s DNS Requests Might Be More Telling Than the Smoke Signals.
  

• 🔗 Listed Helpful Links & Resources.
  

📚 Thanks for Reading, and Happy Smoking!

This coming Father’s Day weekend, your grill should be doing the hard work — not you.

Whether you came here for the WiFi fix, the Sentinel integration, or just needed reassurance that even cybersecurity pros rage at mesh networks sometimes, I hope this guide saved you time (and maybe a brisket). If it helped, consider sharing it with a fellow tech dad — and don’t hesitate to reach out if you’ve got a smokin’ use case of your own to log in Sentinel.

If this post saves you from burning three hours on hold with support, consider it my Father’s Day gift to you.

Fire up the ribs🍖 | Pour something cold 🍺 | And remember: Dad didn’t raise no default gateway 😎

I hope this was a much fun reading as it was writing! 💥 what will you BBQ next? 🧑‍🍳

🔗 Helpful Links & Resources:

• Images generated with ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot.

• Traeger Customer Support

• Eero Customer Support