Freezer thermometer with remote access?

[yorkshirelad1]

Am looking for a freezer thermometer that can be read (& receive alerts?) remotely.

My sister has a freezer in a weekend cottage with a load of food in it, and it would be a shame to loose it.
There are occasional outages (which are bearable) and sometimes just one circuit on the RCD trips (which we may or may not know about)

We have hive for heating (but they don't appear to have any thermometers of any sort), and a couple of webcams, so we know if the power goes off in the whole house or on certain circuits, but it would be nice to get some warning if the freezer gets too warm (there is a friendly neighbour who will go in and flick a breaker switch as necessary)

Any recommendations/thoughts?

TIA

[swill453]

Put a thermometer like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B072FJVSSL on the outside and point a webcam at it.

Scott.

[Julian]

I have absolutely no knowledge or experience of this product but a quick Google from another (non-thermometer-related) angle revealed this...

https://www.isocket.eu/power-failure/

Don't be put off by the first photo showing a US socket, scroll down the page and there is a UK version.

Not a recommendation, more research probably needed, but maybe a possibility.

- Julian

[Urbandreamer]

How much of a hacker/maker are you?

You could connect a waterproof DS18B20 to a Pi zero W. A bit of software that you can readily find and you'll have a web page that tracks the temperature of the Freezer and sends you an email if it gets too high.

You will however have to be able to solder wires to the pi. Configure the router to forward port 80 to the pi if you want to view a webpage. Set up sendmail or a more recent MTP package so that the pi can send emails. Download software and write the odd script.

It's not difficult, but more than some people would feel comfortable doing.
Here is a old link to someone doing something symilar, pre-WiFi days to monitor his house. He links to someone doing so for greenhouses.
http://neilbaldwin.net/weather/raspberr ... ta-logger/

NOTE he used a USB 1-wire interface but today most would use the GPIO lines for the 1-wire interface.

https://www.raspberrypi-spy.co.uk/2018/ ... pberry-pi/

NOTE2. Be careful writing your script. An email every 5 min saying that the Freezer is too warm might be considered spam.

Try a google. I think that you may find that others have gone down this path before.

[Infrasonic]

If AC power outages are an issue remember to factor in UPS / battery backup to any technological solutions, including the modem/router if email is one of them.

[Slarti]

Put the freezer on a double socket extension and run a camera from that. If that camera has gone out, so has the freezer.

Slarti

[Urbandreamer]

If AC power outages are an issue remember to factor in UPS / battery backup to any technological solutions, including the modem/router if email is one of them.

I had assumed that a UPS on the modem/router was delt with given the OP. You can cheaply get Pi UPS sheilds/hats and a USB GSM modem. That would then allow you to send SMS text messages instead of, or as well as, emails. Of course that assumes decent mobile coverage doesn't it!

Another possibility is to use a GSM Nodemcu. Cheap, but a lot more hacking work needed.
ie
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/192704095663?ul_noapp=true