The ambient sensor is embedded near the top of the ceramic handle of the probe. There are two reasons that could cause the ambient temperature to appear defective:

1. It takes a longer time for the heat to go through the ceramic handle to reach the ambient sensor.

2. The probe is inserted into the meat which normally is at low temperature. So the cold tip end of the probe will convey cold temperature to the ambient sensor through the stainless steel probe which will drag down the ambient sensors reading.

However, when you do low-and-slow cooking, this issue won’t bother you as the ambient sensor will give an accurate reading when the cooking time gets longer.