I bought an electric Masterbuilt 30" Sportsman Elete smoker just over a year ago, it has a 1500 watt element with a dial on it. Nothing automatic here, just turn the dial up or down, it has a round thermometer in the door. So far I love it, I would not trade it for one of the automatic jobs because they are simple and there is hardly anything to go wrong. These are double walled so you can smoke even if the weather is cold. These have a metal box over the heating element for the wood for smoke and a water trey to keep moisture up in them. I agree with JW, get some probe thermometers so you can know what is going on with the meat, I run the wires out the smoke hole. A fast reading pocket digital thermometer is handy too. I keep a cookie sheet on the bottom and a disposable tinfoil pan on the bottom shelf to catch the grease, it makes cleanup a lot easier. Whichever smoker you get, you will wonder why you did not buy one of these years ago. They do wonderful things to meat.