This $500 cooker is like a souped-up George Foreman Grill

The Cinder is similar to a panini press. You cook food between two nonstick plates that heat to your desired temperature.

The heating nodes that allow precise temperature control are built into the cooking plates, so they're not dishwasher-safe.

The cooking plates are removable so you can wash them by hand.

The ceramic-coated aluminum plates are easy to remove.

A grease moat surrounds the bottom plate and leads to this drip tray built into the Cinder's base. But none of the grease created when I cooked meat emptied into the drip tray because the base of the Cinder is flat rather than tilted at an angle to let the juices flow off the cooking plates.

You can also use the knob on the Cinder's base to manually control the temperature.

The control screen is small, but it gives you notifications when the Cinder has calibrated the thickness of the food.

The grill uses sensors to measure the thickness of your dish to figure out how long it will take to cook it, and the app gives you an estimate of when it will be done.

The Cinder is 13 by 17 by 7 inches, which takes up a lot of room on a kitchen counter, and it's heavy enough to make moving it in and out of a cabinet a hassle.

The Cinder's lid adjusts to the thickness of the food that you put between the two plates.

The manufacturer's first batch of Cinders sold out during an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, but the company expects to launch another campaign soon so people can order more grills.

Liquids don't drain off of the Cinder's bottom plate, like when I cooked this frozen chicken breast.

I cooked this steak to medium on the Cinder. It might be a little too red for some, but the results were consistent and delicious.