Smart thermometer needed

[The Duke]

I could do this with an audio or pi, I have all the bits needed, however, I don’t have the time, and I have no idea where my geeky maker box is hiding. been quite a lot of work done in the house since the summer, and I know where nothing is. And mainly it’s not for me. So I don’t want to cobble something together making myself tech support for the rest of eternity.

So I need some sort of cheep witless, ap based, but website based is ok too. The main thing is cheap.

It’s simpler if I refer the ‘i’ throughout

The problem is I have an oil filled heater, that has built-in cut off thermometer, however, it’s just a series of about 20 dots from cold to hot. What I need is a way to decipher the dots. I want to heat a space to ‘x’  degrees, and the heater to regulate itself. so I want some type of thermometer to monitor it until I figure out what dot represents the heat I want

Given how easy and cheap such a contraption is to make, for a layman, probably sub £5, the id of through Amazon or eBay would be full of such devices. There are a few, but most expensive.

I’ve found some cheap Bluetooth baby temp monitor devices that pairs with an app, but not sure if that would work.

I have a few hours before the Wednesday delivery cut off happens. So ill see if anyone knows of anything better.

It needs to be witless of some description so it can be monitored at leisure. Wifi is best, but BT will do for now. Under £20 is the cutoff point I reckon.

This is the baby one.

Leeko Soft Ultrathin Smart Bluetooth Thermometer for Children https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0713T82W1/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_EM.nAb15HP8BB

Not ideal, and it can go back if it doesn’t fit the needs

[JayCeeDee]

Have you tried googling the make of oil heater to see if someone has already done this??

[The Duke]

No fun in that John ?

Didn’t think tbh ?

 

Thinking about it, such a table wouldn’t work ad its the average temp of the space we want. So a bigger space would need to be in a higher setting and vice versa

 

Just took a pint of this below. However, I’m still open to more options. Stuff can easily go back.

Oregon Scientific EM211 Weather + Basic Bluetooth Temperature Sensor for Smartphone’s and Tablet’s https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01D8NQHMA/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_JBaoAbKVZDC1S

[Drezha]

I’m actually looking at doing something similar – though I just want to track the heating in the house and see what the temperature is upstairs and downstairs at the same time – obviously, I think that the upstairs is hotter!

I am looking at Pi based solution – if I could do a Pi Zero W one, it would make things very interesting. Save results to my Synology on a NFS share etc. I’ve been thinking but everything I’ve looked at needs soldering and I’m terrible at that.

I could buy one as you say, but I don’t want to have to pay £60 for one!

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[The Duke]

That was the issue I was hitting. There is quite a lot of kit that will do this, but it’s all too pricey. That £60 is about the cheapest entry point.

Cos of a few parts needed, the id of thought things like this would be a dime a dozen.

I could think of a load of reasons for small cheap smart thermometers to be useful. You could mock something up in an hour and have them on eBay the next day .may get my -slaves- kids to work over the Xmas break.

My soldering is also poor.  When I’m messing about with the kids, we just use pegboards and jumpers. Since my Lada turns 16 he isn’t that untreated arm, so I have to wait now for my 9 yo girl to take an interest. Atm, she only likes the end result, and has no patience for the whys and how.

She just zones out. Though my lad took some encouragement. I had to build the stock audio car, figure out the code myself, then work backwards from a cool car, to how to manipulate it, them to the code . not that I’m any good at that either. Mostly rewritten stuff, that is easily adaptable.

 

It’s more about spending the hours with them, and showing them how stuff works or trying my best too* . and hoping something sticks or even better lights a fire within them.

Quite often we would end a session completely stuck and id then spends hours googling solutions etc …

Most of the time I would be 4 am with a load of wires on my bed, and when you got the desired effect, shouting with glee. the wife waking and seeing something daft like a servo move. She’d Mutter something like ”f-ing d-head” and turning over.

[Ed P]

I have found through bitter experience that soldering gets easy if you use the right kit (a temperature controlled solder station) good flux and the right temperature setting for the solder type being used. Soldering is a piece of pudding if you use the frowned upon lead solder!

edit – regular cleaning during use of the soldering iron tip is also a must (the brass pan scraper things are the best cleaners ). Practice helps too!

[Drezha]

Looking at putting one together with the Pi, it’s not that cheap either. Found this guide here.

Parts wise from the UK, you’re looking at (assuming you have the Pi)

Cobbler – £8.50
Breadboard – £4.50
Jumpers/Wire – £3.00
Thermometer – £2.25

Mind, I’ve just gone on Pi Hut and bought all the items to create one with a breadboard (which *looks* like I can do it all without solder!). So we’ll see how we get on – hopefully can do it over the break. Sure I had a USB one floating around – I’m sure I’ve recently spotted it, will have to see if I can dig it out again.

"Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job" - Terry Pratchett

[The Duke]

Gist had a notification that my tomorrows delivery will be here today. So that’s nice. try it out later and see how it is.

 

[The Duke]

@drezha the one I got last night turned up and it’s quite good. Well very good for 9.99 and the app can have up to 20 devices connected.

It’s bt, not wifi so you need to be in reach for it to work, but it has parameter alarms and real-time monitoring.

It has no Alexa or google assistant capability, but I’m sure I could use an app to monitor the notifications from the app to trigger stuff

If so I’d set an old phone up within distance to monitor and have ifttt report it/trigger etc. Sending the trigger to a nest etc via Alexa/assistant  ….

An Arduino would be the simplest way to monitor temps etc, or/and a pi, far more flexible but for under a tenner and 12-hour delivery, it’s a good.

If the output of parameters can be manipulated, it would be a cheap way to have a ‘trigger’ in each main room.

I think its a battery hog, but having an old android or iOS device use as the brains, plugged in would solve this.

I’m sure you could bypass the pi and use an Arduino to gather the data and push it to an android phone via bt, that could then send it to your server.

So many ways to skin a cat. I think I may get one of these for the tortoise house.

[The Duke]

@drezha the one I got last night turned up and it’s quite good. Well very good for 9.99 and the app can have up to 20 devices connected.

It’s bt, not wifi so you need to be in reach for it to work, but it has parameter alarms and real-time monitoring.

It has no Alexa or google assistant capability, but I’m sure I could use an app to monitor the notifications from the app to trigger stuff

If so I’d set an old phone up within distance to monitor and have ifttt report it/trigger etc. Sending the trigger to a nest etc via Alexa/assistant  ….

An Arduino would be the simplest way to monitor temps etc, or/and a pi, far more flexible but for under a tenner and 12-hour delivery, it’s a good.

If the output of parameters can be manipulated, it would be a cheap way to have a ‘trigger’ in each main room.

I think its a battery hog, but having an old android or iOS device use as the brains, plugged in would solve this.

I’m sure you could bypass the pi and use an Arduino to gather the data and push it to an android phone via bt, that could then send it to your server.

So many ways to skin a cat. I think I may get one of these for the tortoise house.

[Author]

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