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!
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.
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.
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.
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Ah makes total sense. Going to start looking into sensors for my house now. Anymore obvious locations that haven’t been mentioned yet?