Does anyone really care?
So a couple of years ago I bought a little sinking thermometer from Amazon and tied it to the side of my pool so it would sit a foot or two below the surface of the water. I’ve learned that if the thermometer says 72 then I can swim, but it’s awfully cold. If it’s anything below 72 then it’s too cold for me to swim. If the thermometer reads closer to 80 then the water is starting to get pretty comfortable. And it’s downright warm by the time it gets up to 82 or 84. I never really had any reason to doubt the readings on that thermometer and I’m still fairly new to the whole pool thing, so I guess I don’t really even know what normal water temps are.
Last week I got a circupool RJ-30+, which has it’s own thermometer and temperature display and I was surprised to see that it was way off from what I was reading with my pool thermometer. The RJ-30+ was showing temps that were a good 12+ degrees higher than the thermometer in the pool. I know that everything has it’s tolerances, but 12+ degrees seemed a little too much. I talked to DSP to see if there was a way to recalibrate the thermometer in the RJ-30+ and they are sending me another temperature sensor for it. It should get here in a few days.
However, I got to thinking about it today and it occurred to me that I really have no reason to trust my $5 thermometer from Amazon and for all I know the SWG could be accurate. I grabbed a couple of cheap little digital thermometers from my box of random aquarium equipment and they are both within .2 degrees of each other and right in the middle. They were about 6 degrees above the pool thermometer and 6 degrees below the RJ-30+.
I think no matter what the RJ-30+ is pretty high. When I first connected it the pool thermometer was showing 82 and the RJ-30+ was reading 94. The water was definitely pretty warm and I’d even be willing to believe that it was in the upper 80’s, but I can’t imagine that it’s was really in the mid 90’s. It could be that the aquarium thermometers are the most accurate. I’ll see what the new temperature sensor for the RJ-30+ says when it gets here later this week.
So after all that, is there a good source for a reasonably accurate pool thermometer? And even if there is, in the end does it really even matter? I’ll learn (or, I guess re-learn) what temps are worth swimming in.
So a couple of years ago I bought a little sinking thermometer from Amazon and tied it to the side of my pool so it would sit a foot or two below the surface of the water. I’ve learned that if the thermometer says 72 then I can swim, but it’s awfully cold. If it’s anything below 72 then it’s too cold for me to swim. If the thermometer reads closer to 80 then the water is starting to get pretty comfortable. And it’s downright warm by the time it gets up to 82 or 84. I never really had any reason to doubt the readings on that thermometer and I’m still fairly new to the whole pool thing, so I guess I don’t really even know what normal water temps are.
Last week I got a circupool RJ-30+, which has it’s own thermometer and temperature display and I was surprised to see that it was way off from what I was reading with my pool thermometer. The RJ-30+ was showing temps that were a good 12+ degrees higher than the thermometer in the pool. I know that everything has it’s tolerances, but 12+ degrees seemed a little too much. I talked to DSP to see if there was a way to recalibrate the thermometer in the RJ-30+ and they are sending me another temperature sensor for it. It should get here in a few days.
However, I got to thinking about it today and it occurred to me that I really have no reason to trust my $5 thermometer from Amazon and for all I know the SWG could be accurate. I grabbed a couple of cheap little digital thermometers from my box of random aquarium equipment and they are both within .2 degrees of each other and right in the middle. They were about 6 degrees above the pool thermometer and 6 degrees below the RJ-30+.
I think no matter what the RJ-30+ is pretty high. When I first connected it the pool thermometer was showing 82 and the RJ-30+ was reading 94. The water was definitely pretty warm and I’d even be willing to believe that it was in the upper 80’s, but I can’t imagine that it’s was really in the mid 90’s. It could be that the aquarium thermometers are the most accurate. I’ll see what the new temperature sensor for the RJ-30+ says when it gets here later this week.
So after all that, is there a good source for a reasonably accurate pool thermometer? And even if there is, in the end does it really even matter? I’ll learn (or, I guess re-learn) what temps are worth swimming in.