Moderately priced Temperature monitoring options?

Jump to latest Follow Reply
D

Demani

Ars Praefectus
5,318
Subscriptor++
  • #1
    I'm looking for something thats pretty accurate but not super expensive for remotely monitoring temperature in office rooms and network closets. Ideally something with logging (every 15 minutes would be great, every 5 minutes would be better). Can either have an app, or talk to a cloud service, or integrate with IFTTT for notifications, or just provide a web page we can connect to. Preferably not more than 150 per sensor.

    We had tried Wyze and Smartthings as inexpensive options, but neither really worked well enough or was accurate enough (a wall thermometer would show a different temp of up to 5 degrees). Any suggestions?
     
    tiredoldtech

    tiredoldtech

    Smack-Fu Master, in training
    84
    Subscriptor++
  • #3
    If you are using APC power devices that support SmartNet, you can add a AP9335T Temperature sensor with settings in SmartNet to report the temperature at interval. Cost per sensor is like $35-$70 on Amazon and $50-$120 on official channels like CDW, SHI and Insight. Tripp-Lite, Emerson, Eaton, and others also have similar accessories that can plug into their power units to do the same log and report functions. As for regular offices, there are a number of options out there, but most appear to be battery powered (even for WiFi logging and reporting units) and some do have calibration options to get more accurate numbers.
     
    • Like
    Reactions: Demani
    tiredoldtech

    tiredoldtech

    Smack-Fu Master, in training
    84
    Subscriptor++
  • #6
    chalex said:
    How accurate is "pretty accurate"? if you have any computers there already, they may have sensors reporting intake temperatures.

    And presumably you ultimately care about internal high temps in those devices anyway?
    Click to expand...
    Most of these have the sensors on 6ft to 12ft leads. That makes it so you can put that sensor end that does the reading in a good number of different places and not necessarily near heat sources such as other computers, servers, switches, or toasty recharging UPS units. Intake temperatures in a wiring closet tend to be near other equipment that already are generating their own heat, often throwing off room "temperature" readings because of the placement of the built in sensors. For example: you get a stack of say half a dozen Cisco 48port POE 3750X units that are near port capacity and running with fiber interconnects- and the temps for built in will be at the very least 5 degrees off of what it is in the surrounding room. Put a calibrated temperature probe outside and off of the metal cabinet/chassis they are in and you can watch that temp hover at lower temps all day (lower than the internal/built in temp probes, wiring closets tend to be fairly warm no matter what).
     
    S

    SandyTech

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    13,235
    Subscriptor++
  • #8
    moosemaimer said:
    Pretty sure that's what we had at the last job, talking to Cacti so we could get graphs and have it send emails.
    Click to expand...
    Yeah, that' one way to do it for sure. Their in house portal/dashboard setup is also pretty good if you don't want to go through your internal monitoring system to do that kind of stuff too.
     
    C

    chalex

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    11,286
    Subscriptor++
  • #10
    tiredoldtech said:
    Most of these have the sensors on 6ft to 12ft leads. That makes it so you can put that sensor end that does the reading in a good number of different places and not necessarily near heat sources such as other computers, servers, switches, or toasty recharging UPS units. Intake temperatures in a wiring closet tend to be near other equipment that already are generating their own heat, often throwing off room "temperature" readings because of the placement of the built in sensors. For example: you get a stack of say half a dozen Cisco 48port POE 3750X units that are near port capacity and running with fiber interconnects- and the temps for built in will be at the very least 5 degrees off of what it is in the surrounding room. Put a calibrated temperature probe outside and off of the metal cabinet/chassis they are in and you can watch that temp hover at lower temps all day (lower than the internal/built in temp probes, wiring closets tend to be fairly warm no matter what).
    Click to expand...
    Sure, yeah, but generally the idea is to alert on a "big change" so depending in his exact use case it may be enough to look for a big spike in temps on any sensor that is normally stable.
     
    Paladin

    Paladin

    Ars Legatus Legionis
    32,552
    Subscriptor
  • #11
    Yeah, unless you are worried about keeping people comfy, the actual temperature doesn't really matter. The delta matters. If you set things up and it hovers around 80 degrees F most of the time, but then jumps to 90 F, you know something has happened. Usually that's all you need to know. A few degrees variance of what you get from the device measurement vs. what you get from a thermometer in the air near the device is not really important as long as the device measures consistently and you can get the data and use it for alerting or graphing.
     
    • Like
    Reactions: Demani and SandyTech
    dbwillis

    dbwillis

    Ars Tribunus Militum
    2,643
  • #12
    I use the xw110 from Control by Web for monitoring my pool and air temps at home.
    controlbyweb.com

    XW-110 Plus™ | Wireless Temperature Sensor

    Measure and report from this precision Wi-Fi temperature sensor. Use as a stand-alone or slave device.
    controlbyweb.com controlbyweb.com
    outside your budget though, but they have other models that can take more sensor inputs if you a few rooms, I etended one of my sensors over 10ft via Cat5 cable
     
    You must log in or register to reply here.
    Jump to latest Follow Reply
    Jump to latest Follow Reply