Surprised at the lack of zigbee devices for pool temperature

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AnAltruist

AnAltruist

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Jul 6, 2016
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Near Toledo, Ohio
My setup is fairly standard with no automation (other than the traditional Intermatic timer). I've thought about replacing the timer with something Smartthings compatible but since I'm adding chlorine by hand, the pump does its thing at night and all is well. I don't see a benefit for it.

However, having many other parts of the house on a Smartthings home automation setup, I thought it would be great to see the pool temperature on my phone. Even better, send me an alert when the pool temp gets higher or lower than certain thresholds.

There are a lot of threads on Reddit, Smarthings, etc about various homebrew creations but nothing commercial. The best idea someone mentioned was using their food saver on a zigbee temperature sensor and just tossing it in to float around.

I'm close to actually trying that but I'm curious if anyone else has tried something better.
 
Part of the problem is the question of where to place a temperature sensor that was not added when the pool was built. If you put it in the plumbing then you don't get a true picture of the pool temperature when the pump is off and there is no water circulation. Also a certain level of stratification tends to occur when you have no circulation. During the hot summer days with the sun shining down on the water the top couple of inches of water can get much warmer than the rest of the pool, and cold water can also sink down to the lowest few inches.
 
I was looking for wireless temperature measurement as well. I have a thermocouple in the heating circuit, but that really only shows the temperature when the pump is running (and in the winter time, since it's right beside our boiler, the temperature looks like it's really high!)

There seem to be 433 MHz floaty things that do temperature, but only relay to their own "controller". Things like this: Ambient Weather WS-14 Wireless 8-Channel Floating Pool and Spa Thermometer: Amazon.ca: Home Kitchen (not recommending this at all, just pointing it out.)

Isaac brings up a good point about temperature stratification as well. I wonder - what about a combo - a floaty and a sinker - they don't even have to be tethered, if they are Zigbee or Z-Wave. Not sure what the market would be like, but the technology isn't that challenging.

This something we should build? Can you point me to the Reddit threads, AnAltruist?
 
Have been away for a while but I'm glad I'm not the only person curious about this.

My neighbor has a VioProducts 11000 (mediocre Amazon reviews) but it has worked well for him. Call me crazy for just wanting to be able to look on my phone to see the temperature.

Quite frankly I think putting the thermometer behind the pool light, if there was room, would be a great idea. It would not suffer from any adverse affects of the sun and zigbee has more than enough range (perhaps not tested under water though).

I can't find the Reddit thread but here is a similar thread in the Smartthings forums.
https://community.smartthings.com/t...-sensor-that-accepts-external-sensor/18117/16

It looks like some of the discussion is around using a device that accepts leads for sensor wires. The wires live in the pool while the sensor can stay dry (e.g., under a slide, diving board base enclosure, etc). Something like that would be fine for me since my diving board and slide both have plastic rock-like covers where it would stay dry fairly easily.

Here is the sensor specifically mentioned in the thread:
http://www.fibaro.com/en/the-fibaro-system/door-window-sensor

Also, here is a waterproof (but pool chemical proof??) cable that someone specifically mentioned being used with a Fibaro.
https://www.amazon.com/DROK-Waterpr...r=1-1-spons&keywords=waterproof+DS18b20&psc=1

If the chemicals would cause too many problems, I wonder if it would be worth wrapping this in something so that the chemicals wouldn't touch the sensor but the temperature would still be accurate enough.
 
Bluetooth was a good fallback plan but I really wanted something that would work with IFTTT in case I add more automation to my setup. This also allows me to keep everything in an app I'm already using. Smartthings is also monitoring my door lock, motion sensors, water leak sensors (which has already saved my basement once), thermostat, outdoor lights and sprinklers. Just trying to pass along information to others that might be deep into home automation.
 
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