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!
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.
https://xtremeownage.com/2022/06/29/433mhz-fridge-freezer-monitoring/
433 mhz sensors work nicely. If, my fridge/freezer / other freezer gets too hot, I get push messages.
Backup wan connection and a LOT of battery runtime ensures I will know.
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.
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!
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
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.
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!
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
Yeah, that seems like over kill. Especially if you’re not hard of hearing.
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!
Yeap, I put it in the actual Fridge, signal seems fine for Bluetooth at least!
Cheers!
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I’ve also never had a Fridge do this (even this one that had gone through multiple power outages).
This one does have a function to toggle off cooling on the front controls, why you’d ever want to do that, not sure… My assumption is something happened during power outage to affect the “brains” of the Fridge, but no idea really.
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A fridge that can handle a temporary power outage wouldve saved the food.
I got this yolink setup June 2022 and it works great. Have not changed the batteries either. The system has notified me a few times like if I’ve put a case of water and beer in. I don’t think this integrates with HA I just needed something that worked and not trying to rig up something. Another must have are water sensors. I’m running 13 govee water sensors and been notified few times also.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08JP39RLP/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Water sensors are the big one for me! I have a mixture of old SmartThings ones, and cheap ThirdReality branded ones (that seem to work fine still!)
My govees were cheap and I needed a ton of them, 13. They got great reviews. Wish they would integrate w HA but not currently without trying with rf reader and it’s too important for me I didn’t want to risk this. Last year went to Hawaii for 2 weeks and this is the reason I bought this stuff.
The fridge and water sensor stuff is to important and should have had it years ago.
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.
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I have a Sonoff S31 on my fridge for about 3 years now for power monitoing and have had no issues. I’m sure the fact I don’t switch it on and off and it’s locked to stay on on power up helps prolong it’s life. If you never switch the load I don’t see how it’s life could be impacted. But I do have a temp sensor on the fridge so any failures I would be alerted to.
Most fridges have two smaller lightbulb plugs. A sensor that could utilize one of those for power would be cool. I hate running stuff off battery
Would this not require a battery as well, as usually the light is only lit while the door is open.
Making vacation even worse for said battery.
You’re absolutely right and I’m an idiot for not thinking of that :-)
Just leave the door open.
