My primary wine storage is a large DIY cabinet I bought off an estate sale with a small cellar unit for cooling, with a bit over 200 bottles of capacity/racking. Its worked great in the 5 years I’ve owned it, my only quibble being the cellar unit doesn’t have a numerical temp setting or anything, just a screw for adjusting temp. I added an indoor/outdoor thermometer when I bought it, which has worked well… up until last week when it died. It was a cheap one I bought more as a proof of concept, rather than a long term solution, and then just never upgraded. Well, apparently the universe wants me to finally upgrade!
So, I would love a suggestion for a thermometer that can do the following:
Tell temp/humidity (duh)
Have a second sensor so I can also have a reading from a different part of the cabinet (not a deal breaker, but definitely made me feel better with my current one that I wasn’t just getting a reading that indicated what one portion of the bottles was experiencing)
Connects to wifi in some shape or fashion so I can access the temp data on my phone easily
Bonus points to having an app based alarm for broad temp deviations
Bonus points to keeping it under $100
Cruising amazon has given me about a billion options, most of which look nice, but I suspect are probably not as great as they seem. Help!
Got this recently and have been really happy with it:
You have to buy the tag manager (requires an Ethernet connection) then can add as many tags as you want. Monitors temp and humidity. App for phone with customizable alarms. Pretty easy to set up.
Yeah - I have that too and I think it ticks all your boxes. You can get two sensors and the gateway for ~$100. Can buy a bottle probe for liquid temps.
Push notifications are extremely quick (I notice the motion detector) and temperature warnings are very adjustable (how long over temp, specific temp, specific humidity, etc.)
A bit of a learning curve to get it set up the way you want, but can be done.
Sensor tags are great. I also use SensorPush as well. I prefer their UI and also the fact that the wireless receiver doesn’t have to be connected to an ethernet port, but rather just a WiFi connection and power outlet.
As I understand it, many don’t recommend using liquid temp to guide your cellar temp.
Glass is a pretty good thermal insulator, so small variances in outside air temperature don’t usually transfer through to the liquid in the glass.
By the time the temperature swings is prolonged enough to affect both the thermal mass of the wine bottle and liquid to cause the probe register the temperature swing it may be too late, or it may take the cellar much longer to climb back to the ideal temperature. An air temperature gauge is going to register swings in temperature much quicker than a liquid probe.
I do think though they can useful in edge cases where a cellar may get too hot or too cold and you want to check if the temperature swings have affected the wine itself. I usually just have a few of small 2-4oz bottles filled with water scattered throughout and then just use a thermapen to manually check the liquid temp every now and then. Doesn’t keep a log like sensor tag, but it’s an inexpensive solution. You could probably rig up a more permanent solution with a drill and some electrical tape if you want as well.
I don’t want it to manage the temp. More just a curiosity which is why I’ve been hesitant to setup the wireless tags. I’m a techie guy but my cellar is decidedly low tech.
What you don’t want is to control your cooling system using liquid temperature for the reasons you state. Or to be the sole basis for alerting you to a deviation.
On the other hand, tracking liquid temperature is useful to determine that you really don’t need to freak out because your cellar has been 65 degrees for an hour.
Both work really well and I have absolutely no complaints. Some above asked if these work when out of the house. I do not believe so since they connect via Bluetooth. Bluetooth connects from quite far away though (can be as high as three stories up from my cellar and I still am able to connect). As far as connecting while away is concerned, I decided that that wasn’t necessary for me because if the temp is off, there isn’t anything I can do about that anyways.