I just wanted to share the results of my looking for a good thermostat alert system.
As background, last year I was planning on brumating my Russian and my fridge compressor broke about a week before I was to start fasting. It was close-ish to Thanksgiving and which is a "hot" time to buy appliances so after waiting for the black friday sale and THEN having to wait for it be in stock, etc. by the time I actually got the fridge delivered I decided to not do it. It also made me VERY paranoid about what can go wrong in a fridge without knowing.
This year before I started I wanted to get a thermostat that would *alert* me to any problems, and to see how accurate my fridge kept its cold. This sounds simple but was actually much harder than I anticipated. There are a lot of sensors out there, but here are some "hidden" things about them I didn't learn until I tried about a half dozen, so I'm sharing here:
1) Apart from accuracy (obviously) I wanted something that would send an alert on my phone, without limitations. Meaning, if I was away from the house I still wanted to get an alert. Quite a number of them only alert you if you are in bluetooth range of the sensor. So if you were using it for your kitchen fridge, that's fine, you likely would be in range of that many times a day. But mine is in my garage.
2) Even if they do not rely on bluetooth, many (MANY!) will not work on a 5G internet system. As that is a lot of internet systems now, that really reduces the options.
In the end, I went with SensorPush (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AEQ9X9I/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20) BUT with the caveat I did have to buy the gateway converter (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N17RWWV/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20) to make it do what I wanted. Regular "sensors" out there range from $20-75, but some are as much as $150+. I suspect the higher priced ones are the ones would end up doing what I had two buy two things to do in the end, but I didn't test that.
So - that said, I am *very very* happy with the SensorPush results. It showed me that my fridge, even without the door opening much, had a much wider range of temps than I really wanted, even with one shelf filled with drinks to try to steady it. In the end, I decided not to Brumate and just set Fezzik up with a tent to retain heat and I keep the sensor in there. At the moment I don't have it under a the basking area, I have it in an "ambient" area but I use my temp gun to regularly check how the sensor compares to the basking area to get a sense of relativity.
I am able to very easily set up the alert thresholds to tell me if it goes above or below a certain amount and it does alert my phone when it happens.
Today I noticed that the temps seemed lower than usual (but still within range) and it was because my basking bulb had burnt out. I caught it faster than I likely would have otherwise.
Also shout out to using tents - since I have started using the tent (I don't want to recommend the brand because it was missing a ton of parts so I don't recommend this one, but its a generic plastic $50ish one like what you've seen other people recommend on this site) the enclosure really maintains the temperatures very well. At one point ambient was staying solidly in the 80s day and night with just CHE and/or bulbs, though I have changed up the lighting now so it drops to the high 60s at night, as I think 80s at night is warmer than needed for a Russian. (DO be careful about having lighting/heating elements be near the plastic of the tent, i think its a fire hazard waiting to happen.
Its going to save me a lot of money this year not having to heat my whole garage, and a lot of anxiety by him not being in the fridge -- also it lets me keep Fezzik up all winter means I get to see him on camera all the time now, which is something I miss dearly when he is in his outdoor enclosure the rest of the year.
As background, last year I was planning on brumating my Russian and my fridge compressor broke about a week before I was to start fasting. It was close-ish to Thanksgiving and which is a "hot" time to buy appliances so after waiting for the black friday sale and THEN having to wait for it be in stock, etc. by the time I actually got the fridge delivered I decided to not do it. It also made me VERY paranoid about what can go wrong in a fridge without knowing.
This year before I started I wanted to get a thermostat that would *alert* me to any problems, and to see how accurate my fridge kept its cold. This sounds simple but was actually much harder than I anticipated. There are a lot of sensors out there, but here are some "hidden" things about them I didn't learn until I tried about a half dozen, so I'm sharing here:
1) Apart from accuracy (obviously) I wanted something that would send an alert on my phone, without limitations. Meaning, if I was away from the house I still wanted to get an alert. Quite a number of them only alert you if you are in bluetooth range of the sensor. So if you were using it for your kitchen fridge, that's fine, you likely would be in range of that many times a day. But mine is in my garage.
2) Even if they do not rely on bluetooth, many (MANY!) will not work on a 5G internet system. As that is a lot of internet systems now, that really reduces the options.
In the end, I went with SensorPush (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01AEQ9X9I/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20) BUT with the caveat I did have to buy the gateway converter (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N17RWWV/?tag=exoticpetnetw-20) to make it do what I wanted. Regular "sensors" out there range from $20-75, but some are as much as $150+. I suspect the higher priced ones are the ones would end up doing what I had two buy two things to do in the end, but I didn't test that.
So - that said, I am *very very* happy with the SensorPush results. It showed me that my fridge, even without the door opening much, had a much wider range of temps than I really wanted, even with one shelf filled with drinks to try to steady it. In the end, I decided not to Brumate and just set Fezzik up with a tent to retain heat and I keep the sensor in there. At the moment I don't have it under a the basking area, I have it in an "ambient" area but I use my temp gun to regularly check how the sensor compares to the basking area to get a sense of relativity.
I am able to very easily set up the alert thresholds to tell me if it goes above or below a certain amount and it does alert my phone when it happens.
Today I noticed that the temps seemed lower than usual (but still within range) and it was because my basking bulb had burnt out. I caught it faster than I likely would have otherwise.
Also shout out to using tents - since I have started using the tent (I don't want to recommend the brand because it was missing a ton of parts so I don't recommend this one, but its a generic plastic $50ish one like what you've seen other people recommend on this site) the enclosure really maintains the temperatures very well. At one point ambient was staying solidly in the 80s day and night with just CHE and/or bulbs, though I have changed up the lighting now so it drops to the high 60s at night, as I think 80s at night is warmer than needed for a Russian. (DO be careful about having lighting/heating elements be near the plastic of the tent, i think its a fire hazard waiting to happen.
Its going to save me a lot of money this year not having to heat my whole garage, and a lot of anxiety by him not being in the fridge -- also it lets me keep Fezzik up all winter means I get to see him on camera all the time now, which is something I miss dearly when he is in his outdoor enclosure the rest of the year.
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