The two thermometers answer different questions, and most confusion comes from comparing their numbers as if they measured the same thing. This page covers what each one measures, how to use them in a kitchen oven and in a pizza oven, why a steel can read far below its real temperature, and what to look for when you buy one.
What each one measures
An oven thermometer sits on a rack and reads the air temperature where it is. That’s the number your oven’s own sensor is trying to hold. Modernist Pizza points out that most home ovens have a cheap and often inaccurate sensor, least accurate at the top of its range, and recommends keeping an oven thermometer in the oven at all times to check it. If a recipe calls for 500°F and your oven only reaches a true 500°F when set to 475°F, set it to 475°F. Its authors add that a steady, repeatable oven matters more than one whose dial is exactly right.
An infrared thermometer reads the heat radiating from a surface, averaged over a circular spot. It doesn’t measure air. The spot grows with distance, which is what the distance-to-spot ratio describes: ThermoWorks says its 12:1 gun reads a 1-inch spot from 12 inches away, so a 10:1 thermometer reads a spot of about 1.2 inches from the same distance (calculated). Get close enough that the spot sits well inside the surface you want to read.
In a kitchen oven
The temperature in a home-oven recipe is the setting on the dial, not a reading of the steel. The Pizza Planner bakes round pizzas at 500 to 550°F (260 to 288°C) after a 45 to 60 minute preheat, and those are settings.
An infrared thermometer is still useful here, for three jobs:
- Checking the oven, not the steel. Modernist Pizza’s test: point the thermometer at the oven’s coolest corner, and when it reads within about 9°F (5°C) of the setting, preheating is probably complete. That’s a check on the oven’s walls. It isn’t a target for the steel or stone.
- Finding the hot and cold spots. The book notes that the lining of a home oven varies by tens of degrees from place to place, with the back corners tending to run hot. Reading the walls shows where yours runs hot and cool.
- Comparing bakes. Read the same spot on the steel or stone before the first pizza and before the second, or from one session to the next. If the second reading is lower, give the surface longer to recover.
Never treat a surface reading as the oven setting, and never turn the dial up to make a reading match it. The temperature guide explains the difference in more detail.
In a pizza oven
Outdoor pizza ovens usually have no thermostat holding a setting, so recipes give a target for the stone itself. The Planner’s ranges for a gas pizza oven are 750 to 850°F (400 to 450°C) for Neapolitan-style and 700 to 750°F (375 to 400°C) for New York, read with an infrared thermometer.
- Read three spots. The oven guide asks for readings at the back, middle and front of the area where the pizza will sit, and checks that all three are in range before you launch. One reading is one spot, not a map of the floor.
- Don’t rely on the built-in gauge alone. A dial or display on the oven doesn’t tell you what the stone under the pizza is doing.
- Take fresh readings between pizzas, at the same three spots, rather than launching on a countdown.
The oven’s manual still sets the lighting and preheating procedure. The readings tell you when to launch.
Emissivity: why steel reads low
Every surface gives off infrared energy at some fraction of the maximum possible at its temperature. That fraction is its emissivity, on a scale from 0 to 1. An infrared thermometer has to assume a value, and when the real surface emits less than it assumes, the reading comes out low.
Dark, dull surfaces sit near the top of the scale and shiny ones near the bottom. Modernist Pizza gives about 0.95 for black soot and 0.68 for clean firebrick or refractory stone. ThermoWorks’s emissivity table lists freshly rolled steel at 0.24, stainless plate at 0.34 and heavily rusted iron at 0.91 to 0.96, and warns that real values shift with texture, color and temperature, so its figures can’t be guaranteed. Those are general entries for those materials, not settings checked on a seasoned pizza steel, and rusted iron isn’t a stand-in for seasoning.
What that means in practice:
- Bare or shiny metal reads low, often well below its real temperature, on a thermometer set for a dark surface. A dark, well-seasoned steel reads more reliably than bare metal.
- Follow your thermometer’s instructions. Ooni presets its thermometer for its cordierite stones and says the emissivity can be adjusted for other surfaces, including steel and cast iron. Neither the preset nor an adjusted setting proves a reading on shiny steel is accurate until you’ve checked it against the surface. ThermoWorks’s advice is to compare the infrared reading with an accurate surface probe and set the emissivity to match.
- Keep the setting and the spot the same. Even an uncorrected reading is useful for comparing one bake with the next, as long as nothing else changes.
What to look for
- Range. Make sure it reaches past the hottest surface you’ll read. A pizza-oven stone can be over 800°F, and the two versions of Etekcity’s Lasergrip 1080 differ: one reads to 1130°F, the other only to 716°F. Check the range on the listing or the model label, because the “1080” name alone doesn’t tell you which one you’re getting.
- Adjustable emissivity, if you’ll read a steel or cast iron.
- Distance-to-spot ratio. A higher ratio reads a smaller spot from the same distance, which helps when you can’t get close to a hot oven floor.
Specifications below are as published by each maker, checked October 14, 2026. Prices change often, so check the current price.
| Thermometer | Range | Distance-to-spot | Emissivity | Maker’s page |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ooni Digital Infrared Thermometer | −22 to 999°F (−30 to 550°C) | 10:1 | Adjustable; preset for Ooni’s cordierite stones | Ooni |
| ThermoWorks Industrial IR Gun (IR-GUN-S) | −76 to 1022°F (−60 to 550°C) | 12:1 | Adjustable, 0.1 to 1.0 | ThermoWorks |
| Etekcity Lasergrip 1080 | −58 to 1130°F (−50 to 610°C) | 12:1 | Adjustable, 0.1 to 1.0 | Etekcity |
| Etekcity Lasergrip 1080 (orange) | −58 to 716°F (−50 to 380°C) | 12:1 | Adjustable, 0.1 to 1.0 | Etekcity |
The orange Lasergrip 1080 stops at 716°F (380°C), below the Planner’s 750 to 850°F (400 to 450°C) stone target for Neapolitan-style pizza in a gas pizza oven, so it suits a kitchen oven only. To tell the two apart, Etekcity lists the 1130°F version under UPC 025706347532, running on two AAA batteries, and the orange 716°F version under UPC 810043375160, running on a 9 V battery.
Do you still need an oven thermometer?
In a kitchen oven, yes. It’s the only one of the two that tells you whether the dial setting a recipe asks for is the temperature you’re actually getting, which is why Modernist Pizza keeps one in the oven all the time. In an outdoor pizza oven, the stone reading is what counts.
Sources
- Nathan Myhrvold and Francisco Migoya, Modernist Pizza (2021), volume 1: printed pages 351–353 (emissivity, black soot and clean firebrick), 390 (inaccurate oven sensors, calibrating the setting, uneven oven linings and stable temperatures) and 392 (keeping an oven thermometer in the oven and the coolest-corner check).
- Ooni: Digital Infrared Thermometer product page (range, distance-to-spot ratio, emissivity preset and adjustment). Checked October 14, 2026.
- ThermoWorks: Industrial IR Gun (IR-GUN-S) product page (range, 12:1 spot size, emissivity range) and “What is Emissivity?” table (material values, the accuracy caveat and the surface-probe method). Checked October 14, 2026.
- Etekcity: Lasergrip 1080 and orange Lasergrip 1080 product pages (range, distance-to-spot ratio, emissivity, UPC, battery). Checked October 14, 2026.