Refrigerator/Freezer Temp Monitor

Hardware
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I have recently had issues with my refrigerator and wish to monitor the temps of the refrigerator and Freezer. I bought the AcuRite monitor but apparently that does not allow integration with HA. Is there any other temp monitor hardware that will allow easy integration with my favorite home integration host?

TIA

Steven

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I use the Aqara temp and humidity monitors with a zigbee controller thru ZHA

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Did you have to buy their hub?

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@stevendom57 - which AcuRite did you get? Did it come with an external display?

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Model OO515M. Yes, it has an external display

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Slightly different model than mine, but it might also be compatible with RTL_433, as it also looks like it’s using 433Mhz RF, or slightly different frequency depending in which region you are.

I’m picking up mine with a LilyGo TTGO LoRa32 V 2,1 1.6.1 433Mhz board with OpenMQTTGateway on it, and it then gets auto-discovered in HA and nicely monitors the fridge and freezer.

No guarantee with your different version, but might be worth looking into if you already have the AcuRite.

P.S.: Looks like the 515 is also supported

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Check Yolink YS8005 . You’ll need one of their hubs too. It’s totally proprietary unfortunately. But it works at quite a distance in my large home, and from inside my mini fridge, wine cooler, garage freezer and kitchen fridge/freezer. I also put Yolink door sensors on all of them to make sure no one accidentally leaves them open.

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I assume you were replying to me?

If so sorry I didn’t see your post. Unless you hit the reply button in my post or directly tag me.

But no I didn’t need to buy their hub. the zigbee controller functions as the hub and then you can also connect anything else zigbee to it as well.

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I use the Xiaomi Thermometer LYWSD03MMC, which costs about $4. It uses BLE so has limited range, but I use an external lipo 1s battery and range is significantly increased and even though the voltage is technically too high for the chip it has done no harm in the 6 months Ive used it.

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Yolink works great. Thanks.

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You’re welcome ! I hope Yolink ends up opening their stuff some day as their wireless technology seems solid.

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I have SensorPush. Been using four of them in my RV for years. One died on me. Fridge, Freezer, cabin and outdoors. They work with Home Assistant. Range is a bit limited. Batteries do last at least 18 months from by personal experience. No hub required. Use BT

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How do you connect the external battery? I’m getting about 2 weeks of battery life with the default coin battery. TIA!

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I soldered a couple of DuPont wires to the battery holder contacts inside the case and plugged the leads into the lipo battery connector. Don’t plug them in backwards though, don’t ask how I know. I did have to cut a path in the plastic housing to get the back to snap on again. Looked ugly at that point with a huge battery sticking out so I made a small box on my 3d printer.

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I used the Aqara Temp/Humidity sensors at first but they use those really little cr2032 batteries which, at 33 degrees, only lasted a month. I switched over to the ERYUE ZigBee Temperature Humidity Sensor, which uses the larger cr2450 battery that have been running 8 months now without issue on the same battery.
Don’t put any of them in the freezer. They all quit within a couple of hours.

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That’s why these dedicated fridge/freezer thermometers are not a bad idea, as with good quality lithium AA batteries they last years in both the fridge and freezer, sending the temperature roughly once ever minute.

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Any reason to think this wouldn’t work well (if not with better range/sensitivity) on this unit?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0B63FV7FR/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3P8OJPGEGCZAI&psc=1

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I honestly can’t confirm or deny it. Might be worth looking it up more closely on the OpenMQTTGateway forum.

But with it mentioning its SX1276 chip, it should be supported.

If you already own the T-Beam you could test it with installing the lilygo-rtl_433 binary of the latest development build, then changing the frequency in the WebUI.

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Also after negative experience with Aqara in freezers, I am veryhappy with these:

If you do not have bluetooth near, they also work well with bluetooth proxies.
For best results, use lithium batteries, but normal ones work well too.

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I’ve put a pair of Ruuvitags in my fridge and my freezer. Works well. It’s BLE broadcasting. It’s captured by my NUC which hosts HA in s container. The integration works perfectly. So far, no problem with the batteries. It’s been 1.5 years so far.