I’ve got a second wine cooler that’s 120 miles from my house, and I’d like a means of remotely monitoring the temperature & humidity. I.e., it would be nice to know the power went out on a hot summer day so I can hop in the car to rescue the vino. The house has wifi, so ideally the device could transmit the data over that network, and I could access it online from anywhere. Even better would be if it sends me an alert when the temp or humidity reached a certain threshold. A friend says such an item exists, but I can’t find it. Thanks in advance if you know of such a thing!
costs around $50 with the gateway and $20 per year for monitoring alerts via email. hard to beat this for simplicity, cost and effectiveness.
+1
You can set a threshold temperature for alarm notices (for example if it gets hotter than 60 degrees) Mine has worked fine now for a few months and I know others on the board are happy with theirs as well.
+2
+3
Thanks for the responses. Buying one now. Looks like it won’t work when the power is out, but then again, it will essentially let me know the power is out if it’s not working. :cheers:
-1 from me.
I wrote a review of this product on Amazon, which comes with a differing view than those above:
+4 - mine has been working great for a while now - well worth the couple of bucks it costs!
Maybe you got a lemon? Mine is on the way, so we shall see. Also, they sell a separate outdoor-specific model, and you can use the same gateway for multiple sensors. I added on the outdoor sensor, too.
Sure, I agree, support sucks and the liquid probe is useless because it can’t be calibrated. But the air temp probe is spot-on, all three of my sensors have been agreeing with each other and my A/C controls for over a year. And I’ve found the website to be very reliable and configuration very easy. For the price they are essentially disposable devices.
Something new is about to come out in the marketplace - it requires no monitoring monthly cost at all. The company is called Supermechanical and the product is called Twine: Supermechanical: Twine. Listen to your home, wherever you are. check it out. Seems perfect for remote monitoring, as it offers temperature and even motion sensing right out of the box. Especially if you have WiFi at the second location. It basically texts/tweets/emails you the info you need to you as often as you want it for temp. Same if a door is opened, if there is a flood or if there is vibration. It is decision rule driven, so you can create any “if/then” output that you want to create. Simple English. Costs $100.
I have no affiliation whatsoever with this company or product…a buddy of mine sent me the link.
Looks pretty cool!
I’m going to order one. I’ll let you know if it works!
Cool product. This is where everything is going - user driven monitoring and control… Thanks for the link Loren!
I agree completely with the WeatherDirect product… Just cheaper to buy here… http://www.ambientweather.com
I ordered a Twine a while (though I’m not planning to use it for monitoring my cellar), and it looks like it’ll be a cool device. However, keep in mind the fact that because it runs on batteries, you’ll have to remember to replace them when they go dead. That does, on the other hand, mean it will keep working if the power goes out. But if the power goes out, is your wifi going to be working?
I have had the weatherdirect for almost two years and am very happy. I do not subscribe to the alert service, so the reporting service is free.
If the electricity goes out, you will recieve an e-mail telling that WeatherDirect has not seen the sender for a couple hours. One time the battery was out on the probe/sender, the other time the power was off. Pretty cool in my eyes.
Bill
Got to meet the weather direct folks at CES. I have two units and I am quite happy with them. They will even be updating their web interface soon and will be coming out with a device that monitors if water is present.
However, Twine does the same thing as well as a variety of other things. I have been looking forward to Twine since I heard about it. Their kickstarter money was pretty impressive: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-listen-to-your-world-talk-to-the-internet
I am not ready to swap out my current system with Twine, but, I look forward to adding some to my house for some other monitoring.
The Twine system looks like it’s more for tinkerers. More flexibility because you can roll your own, but it’s not really off the shelf.
Glad others have had good luck with Weather Direct. I may give it another shot–I really wanted to like the product, but was utterly disappointed as per my review. I readily admit that it offers a product that costs 10x as much from others (although those are perhaps more robust).
Talk about timing - I just received this in my e-mail
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lastseen@weatherdirect.com
Today, Wednesday, Feb 1 11:46 AM | Show Details | View source reply-to lastseen@weatherdirect.com
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Last Seen Alert Save All
The following device has not been seen in over 4 hours: Cellar
A restart of the device and/or gateway may be all that is needed. Please cycle the power/batteries in your gateway/weather station.
Click here to visit your account at http://www.weatherdirect.com.
Do not reply.