Any recommendations for an 'Indigo' Freezer Alarm?

Posted on
Thu Feb 02, 2017 4:56 am
Busta999 offline
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Location: Wales UK

Any recommendations for an 'Indigo' Freezer Alarm?

Hi

Can anyone suggest an Indigo way of detecting (i.e. hardware that is Indigo friendly) detecting an upright metal skinned freezer door has been left open.

Someone in the family (not me) has left the door open overnight for the second time ruining all the contents.

I have ZWave Lightwaverf already up and running.

Seems there are four ways to deal with this.

1. Don't leave freezer door open
2. A temperature sensor the freezer that triggers an alarm (worried about the metal skin of the freezer may block signals)
3. A door sensor (same concerns about metal skin blocking signal
4. An energy monitor on the freezer power supply that triggers when the freezer draws too much power for too long ( not sure how I would implement that)

Any ideas, thoughts?

Thanks

Posted on
Thu Feb 02, 2017 5:36 am
racarter offline
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Location: North Yorkshire, UK

Re: Any recommendations for an 'Indigo' Freezer Alarm?

A Z-Wave door sensor would be the easiest solution. If you can mount it externally with double-sided tape the signal shouldn't be affected much by the cabinet.

Additionally, some door sensors come with temperature inputs and, if you can solder, you could connect the temperature sensor via a thin cable to allow it to be located inside the freezer. (Using a thin cable will reduce the possibility of compromising the door seal.) The temperature sensor option would cater for freezer failure too, rather than just leaving the door open.

Posted on
Thu Feb 02, 2017 5:59 am
yassi offline
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Location: Germany

Re: Any recommendations for an 'Indigo' Freezer Alarm?

Or, you can do something Arduino based (Karl's plugin).
Some photo interrupter, or a force sensitive resistor and so on.

Yassi

Posted on
Thu Feb 02, 2017 6:04 am
autolog offline
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Location: West Sussex, UK [GMT aka UTC]

Re: Any recommendations for an 'Indigo' Freezer Alarm?

From Vesternet (no way affiliated :wink: ):

Probably worth double checking with Vesternet that they will work together as the link for the probe points at the previous version of the Door & Window sensor - I would think it should be OK. :)

Posted on
Thu Feb 02, 2017 6:47 am
andarv offline
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Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Re: Any recommendations for an 'Indigo' Freezer Alarm?

I use a Fibaro wallplug for detecting prolonged energy usage and the lack there off (door open and broken). Works fairly well once you have established the normal usage.

Posted on
Thu Feb 02, 2017 7:13 am
Busta999 offline
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Location: Wales UK

Re: Any recommendations for an 'Indigo' Freezer Alarm?

Actually getting some success !!

I had some 433MHz temperature/humidity sensors for the old weather system.

They go down to -40C/F

I put it inside a freezer bag, I don't humidity reading from the freezer, but should protect it from ice inside.

Connected using the RFXCOM, adjusted reading using the extremely useful Adapters Plugin.

Now to trigger an alarm when it gets above a defined temperature temperature - say -16C

The tricky one will be how to detect if the sensor has stopped working.

Ideally I should be able to test if the sensor has not reported in over 5 minutes - BUT I cannot work out how to do that.

I'm looking at a trigger for the door being opened now. We have just thrown out a lot of food and worth spending some money to stop it happening again.

Posted on
Thu Feb 02, 2017 8:01 am
Busta999 offline
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Location: Wales UK

Re: Any recommendations for an 'Indigo' Freezer Alarm?

Many many thanks to all for the ideas, very much appreciated :-)


OK ordered the Fibaro FGK-102 Door and Window Sensor - Silver, which matches the colour of the freezer nicely :-)

I'll also put a power monitor on it to be sure :-)

The add on thermometer for the Fibaro only goes down to -10 C so not really suitable for Freezer which should be at -18C but would do well for Fridge.

Still need to work out trap a sensor that has not reported for say 10 mins

Thanks all

Posted on
Thu Feb 02, 2017 9:46 am
johnpolasek offline
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Joined: Aug 05, 2011
Location: Aggieland, Texas

Re: Any recommendations for an 'Indigo' Freezer Alarm?

Busta999 wrote:
Actually getting some success !!

I had some 433MHz temperature/humidity sensors for the old weather system.

They go down to -40C/F

I put it inside a freezer bag, I don't humidity reading from the freezer, but should protect it from ice inside.

Connected using the RFXCOM, adjusted reading using the extremely useful Adapters Plugin.

Now to trigger an alarm when it gets above a defined temperature temperature - say -16C

The tricky one will be how to detect if the sensor has stopped working.

Ideally I should be able to test if the sensor has not reported in over 5 minutes - BUT I cannot work out how to do that.

I'm looking at a trigger for the door being opened now. We have just thrown out a lot of food and worth spending some money to stop it happening again.


I have a similar setup for both my chest type freezer and refrigerator freezer; I never bothered to put the OSI sensors into freezer bags and haven't had any issues in two years. I use the "Seconds since last change plugin with a 1 hour trigger to let me know when the batteries are getting weak (about 6 to 9 months)... but my set point for the freezer problem is a lot higher; the freezer runs 0 to -5 F (-18 to -21 C) , but can easily jump up to 10 F (-11 C) while someone is rooting around looking for something in the bottom, so my alarm trigger is set to 20 F (-6 .7 C). I also use indigoPlot to to keep a running 48 hour plot of the temps that I check periodically to make sure the compressors aren't starting to run oddly; the problem that made me put in the system was a refrigerator compressor that began intermittently failing to start due to a bad bearing... fortunately we caught that one because the ice cream seemed soft one afternoon...

If ALL you want is a door open, there are magnetic door/window open sensors in both insteon and Z-wave that work quite well.

Posted on
Thu Feb 02, 2017 1:29 pm
Busta999 offline
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Location: Wales UK

Re: Any recommendations for an 'Indigo' Freezer Alarm?

johnpolasek wrote:
Busta999 wrote:
Actually getting some success !!

I had some 433MHz temperature/humidity sensors for the old weather system.

They go down to -40C/F

I put it inside a freezer bag, I don't humidity reading from the freezer, but should protect it from ice inside.

Connected using the RFXCOM, adjusted reading using the extremely useful Adapters Plugin.

Now to trigger an alarm when it gets above a defined temperature temperature - say -16C

The tricky one will be how to detect if the sensor has stopped working.

Ideally I should be able to test if the sensor has not reported in over 5 minutes - BUT I cannot work out how to do that.

I'm looking at a trigger for the door being opened now. We have just thrown out a lot of food and worth spending some money to stop it happening again.


I have a similar setup for both my chest type freezer and refrigerator freezer; I never bothered to put the OSI sensors into freezer bags and haven't had any issues in two years. I use the "Seconds since last change plugin with a 1 hour trigger to let me know when the batteries are getting weak (about 6 to 9 months)... but my set point for the freezer problem is a lot higher; the freezer runs 0 to -5 F (-18 to -21 C) , but can easily jump up to 10 F (-11 C) while someone is rooting around looking for something in the bottom, so my alarm trigger is set to 20 F (-6 .7 C). I also use indigoPlot to to keep a running 48 hour plot of the temps that I check periodically to make sure the compressors aren't starting to run oddly; the problem that made me put in the system was a refrigerator compressor that began intermittently failing to start due to a bad bearing... fortunately we caught that one because the ice cream seemed soft one afternoon...

If ALL you want is a door open, there are magnetic door/window open sensors in both insteon and Z-wave that work quite well.


A lot of good info here. Many thanks.

Using it now.


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