Learned my lesson after a trip last week… I have sensors for nearly everything, but somehow totally forgot about the Fridge / Freezer.
A power outage made my fridge lose it’s mind and turn off cooling, even after it powered back up. Unplug / replug seems to have fixed it, but all the food was spoiled when we got home. Simple $10 temperature sensor could have saved everything!
A fridge that can handle a temporary power outage wouldve saved the food.
If you live in a climate in which you need to winterize your outdoor faucets (e.g. by shutting a valve in your basement, crawlspace, or garage) a temperature sensor on the warm side of the valve can save you from a flood.
I had to replace the garage door opener one winter and failed to notice a new quarter inch gap at the bottom of the garage door. Combine that with a cold snap and the garage dropped below freezing for long enough to burst pipes.
Fortunately I had a Shelley flood sensor on the floor so I was alerted fairly early and was able to avoid serious damage, but had I been paying attention to the pipes themselves I could have avoided a plumber call-out on Christmas Eve!
Flood/water sensors:
- Hot water heater
- Under kitchen sink
- Behind dishwasher
- Under clothes washer
Smart valve on mains water supply so you can automatically cut off water to the entire house if any of your leak sensors alert.
Since I’ve started automating stuff I’ve got myself an Acurite wireless fridge and freezer thermometer (initially found out about it on Reddit, before it all went to shit and all). It both has a nice magnetic display and it transmits in 433MHz band, so a SDR dongle plugged into my Home Assistant machine can receive the temp readouts. So far it didn’t prevent any disasters, but at least I know how hot it needs to get for the fridge to start having trouble keeping cool.
I also went this route. I’ve definitely had better luck with the Acurite sensors than I’ve had with Zigbee/ZWave sensors in terms of update frequency.
If anyone has other suggestions for possible ‘blind spots’ like this, appreciate it!
Water sensor near your washing machine.
And a smart speaker connected to HA in the bedroom to play a alarm once the smoke detector goes off.
I’ve yet to experience a smoke detector quiet enough that I couldn’t hear it throughout my entire house
I’ve been wanting to do this for awhile after having problems with the cooling coils freezing over. My question is, what sensor would you use for this? A battery-powered one would need to be recharged and a wire running into the fridge would break the seal
These are the ones I got, just because they are only $9 each, with a display as well. Each one has 2x AAA battery, so I’d expect they’ll last quite a while. HA also reports on battery level - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0872X4H4J
They are bluetooth, but I already had an ESP32 for other sensors. Seems to work great w/ Home Assistant / ESPHome so far!
I currently have a similar setup (ESP32, BLE Sensors with ESPHome). Only problem is my sensors are Cr2032 and they go through a shit ton of batteries.
Is there a write up somewhere on how to get these working? I’d like to replace all mine!
If you already have ESPHome and Bluetooth proxies setup, the Govee sensors should be auto discovered by Home Assistant as soon as you put the batteries in!
It is the Govee Bluetooth integration, I was actually amazed how simple the setup was. Didn’t even have to install the Govee app. Definitely give them a try, the price is right!
A battery powered ZigBee one should last for at least a year…
I bought a battery-powered (2xAAA) zigbee temperature/humidity sensor about 6 months ago and haven’t replaced its batteries yet.
Might be a dumb question since I have no experience with sensors. What would you have been able to do if the received an alert while you were out of town is the sensor able to turn the fridge off and on? Is that what you meant by “simple $10 temperature sensor could have saved everything”?
You could then call a friend or family member and ask them to check on it.
Or if you had it on a smart outlet you could try rebooting it.
You could then call a friend or family member and ask them to check on it.
This is exactly what I had in mind.
Fridge is probably one of the few things I’m hesitant to put on a smart outlet, just because chance of something going wrong with it.
A lot of smart outlets develop problems over time from the inductive surge current on electric motor startup (air conditioner, fridge, dehumidifier). The current ratings in ads are generally for resistive loads. Inductive load limits can be 30% less.
Would you put the sensor itself inside the fridge/freezer, and would it still have signal?
My Aqara sensor has a pretty good signal in my fridge, results may vary as the material of fridges vary.
How is battery life in this cold environment?
Cheers!
