Automated temp email reporting

[dnix71]

The church I attend receives USDA food to distribute to the poor. The reporting requirements have gotten more burdensome after the local supply contract changed hands and the last federal money allocated expired in May. We are now being required to daily transmit temperatures by email for the dry food storage closet, a box freezer and a common upright fridge/freezer, all in different rooms, but all within range of wifi. This wifi requires a login password for internet access.

Is there an affordable device that would transmit local temp by email once a day? It should be battery powered, but could be plugin as there are outlets within easy reach at each location.

We are present most 5 day weeks, but never on Saturday or most holidays and to read manually and transmit now requires someone with keys to the building and storeroom and refrigerators/freezers. Those must be locked down to control inventory. The inventory is supposed to be transmitted daily, but it doesn't change except on days when a responsible person is on site, so we should be able to just tell them that.

I would need one device that reads common office room temps, one that reads fridge temp (32F/0C up) and two that read freezer temps from 32F/0C down to -20F/-10C.

The ability to automatically send a simple text email to a specified address is a requirement, otherwise it will still require manual intervention.

[joestue]

https://us.govee.com/products/govee-wi-fi-digital-thermometer-hygrometer-3-pack

This might do it

[dnix71]

That's a great price. It does require line ac power with a battery backup. I don't see how it would work inside of a fridge or freezer without a remote sensor. The metal shell of the fridge/freezer would block wifi unless maybe if you kept the server close by.

[Mary B]

One of these with a cheap wifi cam pointed at it and you access the cam from your office? https://ambientweather.com/amws3000x3.html

I have the older version that I use to track 2 fridge temps and 3 chest freezer temps along with temps in my basement(winter) and bedroom(year round, lets me know if the A/C kicked off in summer or the fan moving warm air from the pellet stove in winter kicked off), as i type the meat freezer is -11f, veg freezer 3F, spare freezer 80f(not in use right now), kitchen fridge 39f, keg fridge for m homebrew is 40f, 69f in the basement, 72f in the bedroom... all form a handy little console that runs on batteries that last 9+ months.

Get extra sensors though... ones with probes seem to have a 2 year lifespan then something fails. At $23 for the remote sensor they are not expensive.

[SparWeb]

My understanding of the Rhaspberry Pi is that it will do all of this for you.  I do not have direct experience setting one up but know someone who has, and on a similar project to monitor soil moisture remotely.

With a 2-wire temp probe in your freezer, the Pi can record at intervals and also run an e-mail client to send the e-mail.

Alternatively, your Pi could FTP an update to a website with this data.

I have done a similar thing with an Arduino but it was a PITA, so I recommend using the Pi instead.

[DamonHD]

Hi,

An RPi cn indeed do all that stuff.  My main mail server runs on a RPi and also collects scads of data and saves it in logs, draws graphs, etc.  Mine also talks to custom hardware, other systems over Internet...

https://www.earth.org.uk/data/

Rgds

Damon