Chaney Instrument 00985 Wireless Refrigerator Freezer Thermometer Alarm Set
by Chaney
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List Price: Category: Kitchen See more product details |
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Kitchen and Housewares Reviews of Chaney Instrument 00985 Wireless Refrigerator Freezer Thermometer Alarm Set
Customer Review: Good Product. It Has Paid For Itself
Summary: 4 Stars
We have had the Chaney 00985 Wireless Refrigerator Freezer Thermometer for about two months. It does not come with batteries. You need to buy 2 lithium AA; 2 AA alkaline; & 2 AAA alkaline batteries. It seems to work best to have the sensors directed toward the monitor. The sensors can be placed in a freezer or fridge in one room and the other sensor in another freezer or fridge somewhere else in the house. The monitor can be set to the desired high and lows for either freezer or fridge with separate alarms that can be turned "On" or "Off". The monitor is magnetic so it can attach to the front of the fridge or it can be used on the counter top or hung on the wall. The sensors do not work well for "Frost-Free" since those temps rise too high...unless you left the alarm off. Please note that the monitor does not alarm if it loses signal. This could be a problem if the batteries got too weak or if something got in the way of the signal (such as metal pots and pans).
Although not perfect, I was grateful when the fridge alarm sounded early one morning recently. During cold weather, our garage temp dipped and the fridge temp had dropped to 33 degrees. I had fresh fruit and other items that would not handle being frozen. I had placed the sensor in the fridge because I had feared that the door might be left ajar (again) and everything would get too warm. The cold morning wake up also alerted me to other cold weather issues that needed immediate attention.
Our sensors are located about 25 feet or so apart. One is in the extra fridge in the garage. The other is in the freezer located several rooms away. Our monitor works best somewhere in between, but closer to the freezer. During our learning curve, we experimented with where to put the monitor so both fridge & freezer readings worked continuously. I finally discovered that pots & pans in a certain place on the counter top were stopping the signal from getting through. It takes a few minutes for the sensor to send a new signal or to "E" (error). It has taken a few days to find the right place for the monitor. In the end, it is located about 6ft up on the wall nearest the freezer and is receiving continuous signals without interference.
Update: It has several taken weeks to find "another" right place to get the monitor reading continuously from both sensors. Not sure what electrical signal(s) have been interfering. It seems to be okay now, although the monitor doesn't work where I would like it to be. I phoned Chaney Instruments. Was told, by a helpful customer service rep, that the product has a one year warranty & the range is up to 100 feet. In this cold weather, the fridge alarm has gone off several more times because the temp had again dropped to near freezing. The fridge is effected by its surrounding, not just the setting. So, for me, it is worth another try.
Update: We have had these two temperature alarms for well over a year. It is great to being able to monitor the garage fridge from the kitchen. We have noticed the fridge temp goes up or down depending on the garage temp & the thermostat needs to be adjusted with the temperature changes. I would not have had any idea this was happening without this device. I really like this product and would not want to be without either unit I have.
If you are having problems with your unit, try removing all the batteries for a few minutes and reinstalling as per instructions. You might need to install the exact type of batteries the manufacture/customer service says to install. I went round and round and round again before mastering how to make them work. Now they work just fine.
Customer Review: Just what I needed
Summary: 4 Stars
Given the mixed reviews of this product, I was pretty hesitant to order it. However, there weren't a lot of alternatives so I thought I'd go ahead and try it. I'm happy to say that it works just fine and I'm actually quite happy with it.
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SET-UP
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The set-up was easy. I put the AA-Lithium batteries in the sensors first, and then the AAA-Lithium batteries into the base and within 1 minute it had registered both sensors and started working.
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ACCURACY
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This was my biggest concern given some of the other comments. However, with both sensors side by side on a table, they both read within 1 degree of each other, and both matched my external room thermometer. Good enough for me!
Then I placed them in my fridge and freezer. They took about 15 minutes to acclamatize and then started reading exactly the same as the readouts built in to the fridge.
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RANGE
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This was the key point for me. I needed something that was going to have range, as I don't want to have the main base attached to the outside of the door.
With the base attached to the door, no problem they worked fine.
With the base 20ft away and in the next room - also worked great.
When I moved one of the sensors out of the freezer and into a room down the hall (about 35ft away) it stopped registering that one, but still read the other in the fridge (20ft away) - I suspect the multiple walls were blocking the signal.
The one negative I would say about this, is that unlike the Orgagon Scientific thermometers I've used, this base unit provides no indication that it has lost contact with the sensor. I'd suggest that if it doesn't get an update within 2 minutes, it should show that on the screen somehow. Instead, this unit just keeps showing the last known temp -- not very helpful.
Also, once it has lost it's connection, it seems that you have to remove the batteries or hit the paperclip sized reset button on the main base to re-initiate the connection.
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ALARMS
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Dead simple to set and exactly what I needed.
BATTERIES
I saw somebody else complained in a review that you have to use expensive lithium batteries in the sensors. That's a little silly isn't it? It's hardly the manufacturers fault that alkaline batteries would freeze in the freezer and not function.
My only complaint (and admitedly it's also a bit dumb) is that Amazon shipped the batteries in a separate box and 2 days later than the actual thermometers, so I had it sitting here for two days while I wanted to try it. See, told you it was dumb.
In closing, I think this is a good product. It seems well constructed. The mounting options of suction cups or spring clips on the sensors - and - wall hanging or magnets on the base are appreciated.
The only things that would make this a 5 star in my opinion are:
- indicate when you've lost a signal
- make the base available in silver and/or black
- sell as a bundle with your first set of lithium batteries included.
I'm now going to take it out to my RV where I really need it. I will edit this if I have any future problems.
I'd buy it again...
Jay.
Customer Review: Works reasonably well.
Summary: 4 Stars
Despite serious flaws in the product's ability to monitor its own health, it is still useful.
I've been operating two sensors in one deep freeze for nearly a month now. Both of them worked straight out of the box and seem to be well calibrated. I'm using lithium batteries since my temperatures generally run between -18 Fahrenheit and zero Fahrenheit. I have the monitor mounted magnetically on the freezer since the wireless transmission range is poor given the metal freezer and a wall or two. Since the freezer is placed in a garage it is sufficient to have the alarm located with the freezer since the garage gets a lot of use and it's still loud enough to hear from our kitchen. The magnets on the back of the display are great since it makes installation trivial. The display literally looks like it could be part of the freezer since the color matches so well.
The sensors are a bit bulky for use in a freezer. The suction cups won't work in the cold, and I can see no point in clipping the sensor to something. I keep the sensors near the top of the chest freezer where the temperatures run warmest. If the sensor goes off line (for example if the battery is removed or dies) the display will show an error but there will be no audible alarm nor could I discover any way of clearing the error short of removing batteries from both sensors as well as the display to reset the entire system. This is a very poor design. There is no reason why the software in the display couldn't generate an audible alarm if a sensor times out. Furthermore, changing batteries shouldn't necessitate resetting the entire system.
The minimum and maximum temperatures are quite useful since it may take hours for a freezer to go through a cycle. It's also nice to know how warm your food actually got during a failure. The ability to choose your minimum and maximum temperatures works in 1° increments and is just what I would expect.
I run another piece of temperature monitoring equipment which also uses the same frequency. Something around 400 MHz. It presents no interference issues with WiFi or typical cordless telephones.
In summary, I like the fact that the system runs off of batteries since it will continue to monitor temperature despite a power failure which even a high-end freezer is unlikely to do. I like the fact that there are no cables to affect the seal on the freezer. The alarm goes off if the temperature threshold is exceeded until it is cleared, which is appropriate. The main drawbacks to the system are the fact that the battery can fail, or a sensor could fail and no alarm is raised, the entire system has to be reset when changing batteries in a sensor, and the wireless range is pretty poor.
Customer Review: No, really, these work
Summary: 4 Stars
Despite what some other reviews have said here, these thermometers work just fine. They are, however, somewhat slow. The sensors only transmit every few minutes, and the red LED on each flashes briefly to let you know when they are transmitting, which removes the uncertainty I've experienced with other remote thermometers. If you put the batteries into the transmitters first, rather than the receiver, you won't see a temperature update for quite some time. Further, it seems like it takes a while for the sensors to register the proper temperature even after they're in place. Mine read rather high for at least half an hour after I put them into the refrigerator and freezer.
Both sensors come with suction cups and built-in spring clips. The instructions state that the suction won't work very well in the freezer, so you should use the clip. I couldn't get the suction cups to work in the refrigerator either. I ended up clipping the freezer sensor to the front of a wire tray, and just placing the refrigerator sensor near the back of one of the shelves.
You only need 2 lithium AA batteries for the freezer compartment sensor. The 35-40 degrees of the refrigerator are well within the normal operating temperature range of ordinary alkaline batteries, and the instructions say as much.
It's good that the display shows not only the current temperature, but the highest and lowest temperatures since you last pressed the clear button. It turns out that my refrigerator and freezer vary +/- a few degrees over time, so the current temperature doesn't tell the whole story if you are thinking about shifting the temperature settings slightly.
Customer Review: A Little Finicky, Requires Patience, But Worth The Effort
Summary: 4 Stars
It took me a while to get this setup working, but this is truly an amazing product with amazing features. I was having a bit of trouble geting the refrigerator interior monitor to "talk to" the temperature display unit at first. The instructions tell you that it's OK to use alkaline batteries on the refrigerator monitor, but they advise lithium batteries for the freezer monitor. I mounted the magnetic display unit to the exterior door of the freezer, and it picked up the freezer temperature right away but it wasn't getting the refrigerator temperature. So I did two things: 1) I replaced the the alkaline batteries recommended for the refrigerator monitor with lithium batteries like I had already used in the freezer monitor. 2) I moved the refrigerator monitor as close to the display unit as possible by moving it into the butter shelf inside the refrigerator door. After patiently waiting for about 30 minutes, the display unit finally "lit up" with a temperature that it received from the refrigerator monitor. After spending the night with each other, the monitors now seem much more communicative with the display unit, and the displayed temperatures have settled out very close to the actual temperatures inside the refrigerator and freezer.
This setup keeps track of the current temperature of the refrigerator, and it also displays the highest and lowest temperatures read since the last time the "clear" button was pushed. After a little patience during initial setup, it is just terrific.