Mobile application for controlling outdoor grill

A cloud computing system for communicating with and controlling operation of an outdoor cooking appliance comprising a hopper configured to provide combustible pellets into a combustion area of the outdoor cooking appliance, the cloud computing system comprising:

• at least one processor;
• and
• at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions thereon that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the cloud computing system to:
• responsive to receiving one or more communications, from a remote device, determine a location of the remote device relative to the outdoor cooking appliance;
• responsive to determining that the location of the remote device is within a certain distance of the outdoor cooking appliance, enable control information to be transmitted to the outdoor cooking appliance;
• transmit the control information to the outdoor cooking appliance;
• and
• instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the cloud computing system to receive usage information from the outdoor cooking appliance.

A method for controlling an outdoor cooking appliance using a software application on a remote device, the outdoor cooking appliance comprising at least one hardware controller and a hopper for providing combustible pellets into a combustion area of the outdoor cooking appliance, the method comprising:

• determining a plurality of locations of the remote device relative to the outdoor cooking appliance;
• transmitting an indication to the remote device indicating that the outdoor cooking appliance has established network communication with one or more remote computing systems;
• and
• in response to determining that the remote device is within a certain distance of the outdoor cooking appliance based on a current location of the plurality of locations, directly transmitting one or more instructions to the outdoor cooking appliance from a cloud computing system.