this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2025
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If you want your fridge to tell you its temp, just slap your own temp sensor in it. Put a mic by your laundry machine to detect the buzzer and alert you. DIY all the things, don't give these "smart" appliance companies money to spy on you.
Laundry machine can be monitored reliably with a smart socket.
Here is a blueprint for HomeAssistant that has been working well: https://community.home-assistant.io/t/detect-and-monitor-the-state-of-an-appliance-based-on-its-power-consumption-v2-1-1-updated/421670
@okamiueru
For over one year now Homeassistant has been reliably announcing the end of the cycle by flashing all smart lights in RV before switching them back to their original state. What i like most is the fact that with the same reliability the washer beeps thirty seconds later.
The only issue I see is that getting most sensors to work in the fridge/freezer is difficult for 2 reasons, the cold fucks with the batteries and the metal body of the fridge fucks with the signal.
I just used zigbee and put a repeater right next to the fridge. The big ass coin cells in the sonoff temp sensors are lasting around 6 months. Would probably be longer but I have the sensor with a screen in there.
Obviously YMMV if you have a SubZero or something, but in my jankey LG it works fine.
Simple, just drill a hole into the fridge and use a probe from outside.
/s just in case
It is a legit strategy.
Or just use thin enamelled copper wire connected to the sensor and tape it down where the door closes, no drilling required.
Yeah I've got a multimeter that could do it, but you would need to be careful drilling through to not hit any of the cooling jackets
Home brewers are looking at you very oddly right now.
Yep my beer fridge is exactly this :)
Home brewers just set the fridge thermostat as cold as it goes and set the temp externally by turning the power off when it's cold enough.
Not sure i'd drill a hole into my nice-looking kitchen fridge though. Probably rather than connect it to WiFi, but... I don't currently see a need to connect it to wifi anyway?
@southernbrewer
I‘m not a Home brewer but three of our fridges get the same treatment as their primitive „thermostats„ are so crappy. Two simply were either too cold or not cold enough with a ridiculous amount of variation while the third one, an outdoor fridge-freezer combo has the thermostat in the fridge compartment and during cool nights sees no need to cool while the freezer compartment gets close to thawing.
We use a kegerator so the probes just run through the pre-drilled hole for the gas. But really the cables are so thin a standard door seal would close over them
I can see where a temp would be useful to detect failure , but a power draw monitor would do the same