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: Peace of mind
Summary: 4 Stars
I read all the prior reviews and was a little cautious about this purchase but knew that if it worked as advertised it would really meet my needs. I made sure that I bought some Lithium batteries for the units that are placed in the freezer but already had some AAA batteries lying aorund for the base unit. I really do not understand why they use AA in the remotes and AA in the base but not that big a deal.
Anyway everything worked fine, I had the base located on the wall midway between the 2 freezers, one out in the garage and the other in the kitchen, both about 15 fett away and the one in the garage had to transmit through the wall as well. After a few days I started getting an error code ("E") so I pulled the batteries out of the base unit to reset it. This became more frequent over the course of the next couple of weeks and got to the point where I moved the base to the side of one of the freezers and turned off the second remote but could not get it to provide a reading. Still the problems persisted. The only remaing thing to try was to replace the AAA batteries in the base unit since I really did not know how old they were or if they had been previously used. BINGO, that solved all the problems and now the base unit is relocated back to it's original home and is working flawlessly. Lesson learned, always use FRESH batteries.
It would be nice if the base would have a low battery indicator but other than that I am now a happy camper.
Customer Review: Good price, solid build but only 1 of 2 sensors worked. Great seller.
Summary: 4 Stars
We bought this set to monitor our new wine cellar. One of the two remote sensors works fine, the other was dead on arrival--installed multiple sets of batteries and the power light stayed off. While the concept is very good and the components feel solid, quality is apparently spotty. With the magnets on the back of the monitor, I put it on top of the cabinet, which works out well. I wanted a sensor on the top and another on the bottom shelves since the whites and desserts on the bottom should be cooler. The working sensor clipped securely onto the top wire rack.
I emailed the Amazon seller about the problem and was initially given the option of packing up and sending the whole set back for an exchange, or trying to get the manufacturer (Chaney) to replace the defective sensor. A few emails later and the seller volunteered to open a package and send me a replacement sensor. I am very impressed with this seller, DTMdirect, and would certainly buy from him (Don) again. His price was the best I found, packaging was very good, shipment was very fast, and his email responses were fast and cordial.
I'm not altogether happy with this product yet, since obviously the quality control needs improvement. Therefore I give 4 stars. If both sensors worked out of the box I may have given 5 stars. I do recommend this item and the seller.
Customer Review: Good, but has a major flaw
Summary: 4 Stars
I've used one of these for about a year now and am fairly happy with it. I've checked its readings against a fairly high quality temperature probe and it's within a degree or so. I primarily use it to keep tabs on the temperature around some temperature sensitive medications, but it actually helped save energy too. It seemed like my refrigerator ran a lot and I found that the freezer was much colder than it needed to be. This unit allowed me to fine tune the (crappy) refrigerator temperature controls to keep both in a good range.
Many complain about range, and more range would be a good thing, but refrigerators are effectively a metal box and I'm surprised they work as well as they do.
There's been some complaints about needing lithium batteries for the freezer. This is dependent on how cold you keep the freezer and is to be expected. Alkaline batteries have a water based electrolyte and they simply freeze internally if it gets too cold. This is a shortcoming of the battery and not the sensor. I keep the freezer between 0F and 5F and alkalines work for me.
The major design flaw I see with the units is that I think the alarm should sound if the alarm is enabled and the unit loses contact with the sensor. I'd really like to know (right away) if it loses contact with the sensors.
Customer Review: Better than you might expect
Summary: 4 Stars
For the price, this is an excellent device. I haven't tested it's range that much because I haven't had a need to. At the moment it is just held to the outside of one of the freezers by the magnets on the back of the receiver. Some of the reviews rated this unit poorly, but what they wrote did not instill confidence they really knew what they were talking about. I took a chance since there really isn't much readily available to compete with this remote thermometer in it's price range. One of the things I suspected by the poor reviews was that the expectation was much too high for such an inexpensive device. Inexpensive electronic thermometers ususally do not update right away. Infact, they may take a minute or more to update the display with the sensor. Such is the case with this unit. It takes a while to update. Under the circumstances of what this thermometer is supposed to do, this is quite acceptable. It monitors the temperature, records a min/max, allows any custom cold temp alarm setting you may need, sounds an alarm outside of your setting, wirelessly, all at a very affordable price.Customer Review: Chaney WIreless thermometer - limited range
Summary: 4 Stars
I am very satisfied with this product, except for the fact that the range of the wireless readout is VERY limited. The only way I could get it to work reliably was to mount the readout on the outside of the freezer!
I have two freezers in the garage and had hoped to be able to have the readout in the kitchen - a distance of about 10', through 2 walls. That didn't work, so I put it in the laundry room adjacent to the wall that the freezers were on. Even that didn't work. So I had to put the readout right next to the freezers. So the temperature alarm is not as useful as being in the house. However, since we do go out to the garage often (at least once a day), it's better than not having the alarm.
The problem we had was that the freezers are plugged into a GFI circuit, and the GFI breaker would trip periodically. So we wanted the alarm to prevent melting everything in the freezers.
You do need to buy the lithium batteries though, alkaline batteries just won't work very well in a sub-zero environment!