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My love for barbecue was slow. I’m from England where BBQ means grilling burgers and steak in the garden on a gas grill. So when I moved to South Carolina over a decade ago, I had no idea what pulled pork was or that brisket was even a thing. I learned quickly. Smoking meat is akin to religion in these parts, and I suspect many pitmasters would view the latest gadget I’m testing as heresy.

Today, barbecue is one of my favorite meals — a brisket from Lewis Barbecue in Charleston is what I’d ask for as a last meal. However, even though I fancy myself as something of an accomplished home cook, I’ve never had much luck smoking my own meat. So, I was intrigued to test the $999.95 GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker.

A smart indoor smoker, the GE Profile gadget promises an easier and faster way to get that smoky flavor; plus, it’s literally the only option if you don’t have the space or climate to use an outdoor smoker. I have an outdoor smoker, but it is rarely used. It’s huge, requires a lot of preparation, and I feel compelled to smoke a lot of meat to justify using it — plus, as I mentioned, I haven’t been able to make my own barbecue.

Its main tricks are being small enough to fit on your counter (although it’s not small) and smoking food without smoking your kitchen. Something called Active Smoke Filtration Technology and an airflow system combined with tight seals and gaskets keep the smoke inside the unit. This works very well. There was no smoke at all from the oven while cooking, but I could still smell the wonderful aromas. The only thing that came out of the gadget was heat. My kitchen got very warm while I was using it.

That’s because it’s essentially an oven that adds a smoky flavor. Unlike a real outdoor wood pellet smoker, the smart indoor smoker does not cook your food with smoke. It uses a separate heating element that does most of the heavy lifting while the smoke infuses it with flavor. This significantly reduces cooking time and means you use far fewer wood pellets. But I’ve found that meat doesn’t always achieve that tenderness you get from smoking it alone.

However, if you want to smoke meat indoors, this is a very good way to do it. Purists may scoff, but it’s more effective than an outdoor smoker. And while it’s been hard to fit into my daily cooking routine — it still can’t cook anything in less than an hour — in the two months I’ve been testing it, I’ve been using it at least twice a week, much more often , than I use my outdoor smoker. It’s extremely easy to use and easy to clean, and its nifty Keep Warm feature meant I could put a piece of meat or some sweet potatoes in the smoker in the morning and it would be ready for dinner.

Two downsides are the price—$1,000 is a lot for a single-purpose gadget—and the size. Only consider this if you have a lot of counter space or somewhere you can store it when not in use. It’s short enough to fit under my cabinets, but not the four inches of clearance that the manual recommends. My husband didn’t want it near anything that could catch fire (he’s a firefighter and was deeply suspicious of this device, but it’s never caused any problems).

It should be large enough to accommodate the popular barbecue meats. GE Appliances says its three removable racks allow enough room to cook three racks of baby back ribs, breasts, a whole chicken, up to 40 wings or a 14-pound pork butt. I haven’t tested these capacity limits — there’s only so much meat a family can eat. But it had no trouble handling anything I put in it, from a whole chicken to two racks of ribs to a large breast (halved).

The rest of the device is similarly well designed. It has a nice large digital display that is easy to read, with a large dial that you turn and push to select temperature and smoke level, plus digital buttons for basic functions. There are six presets for brisket, pork ribs, pork butt, chicken wings, chicken breast and salmon that can be activated from the device or the GE Appliance Smart HQ app. Then there is a customization option to set up your own smoke. The app is optional, but it offers some tips and tricks and can alert you when the door is left open, when the smoker is preheated, or when the food is almost done, which is handy.

To start smoking, I selected one of the presets, chose whether to use the built-in temperature probe or a set cooking time (annoyingly, you can’t use both), added the pellets, filled the bucket with water — where the pellets are go to turned off – and pressed start the machine. Once it reached the set temperature, I had to press start again (which I couldn’t do remotely) and the smoking started.

The smoker did a great job infusing everything I cooked with a wonderful smoky flavor, ranging from mild for shorter cooking times to really rich for meats that had been slow cooked for eight to 10 hours. I liked that I could monitor and control the unit from the app and use voice commands with Alexa to adjust the temperature.

But his mind is limited. As is common with smart kitchen devices, I was unable to remotely start the appliance. I was also disappointed that the smoker couldn’t automatically adjust the cooking temperatures for me. The Traeger Smart Smoker I have will adjust the temperatures for extended smoking, which takes a lot of the guesswork out of barbecuing. The GE Profile Smart Smoker requires frequent manual intervention for larger meats such as brisket, including turning the meat, as the compartment does not heat evenly.

Unfortunately, my manual intervention was not successful. While all the meats I cooked had excellent smoky flavor, my two attempts with pork butt and three attempts with brisket came out chewy. The chicken, salmon and sweet potatoes were good, but these more complex meats I struggled to get right.

To be fair, I also struggle with the Traeger ones, but the GE Profile Smart Smoker hasn’t made me a better pitmaster. It’s still a skill I’m guessing a machine can’t learn. In retrospect (and based on a similar experience this professional griller had with the Smart Smoker), it’s likely that using the Keep Warm setting would have overcooked my meat. It takes a while for the internal temperature to come down, so I probably should have adjusted the cooking time to account for that.

It would be great if this smart smoker was smart enough to do this for me. Or smart enough to automatically adjust the cooking temperature during smoking so that the meat comes out tender every time. While this innovative gadget brings something new to the kitchen, its smart features are pretty basic right now. Smart kitchen gadgets that help you cook are great, but what I want most from a smart kitchen are smart devices that help you be Better cook.

Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy/The Verge