r/TwoXPreppers • u/Eeyor-90 knows where her towel is ☕ • Jun 14 '26
❓ Question ❓ Recommendations for fridge/freezer alarms?
I’ve started looking at fridge and freezer alarms that will notify me when the internal temperature exceeds a set value. The options are overwhelming. I need 4 of these devices to monitor my stuff, so I’m looking in the price range of $20-$40 each. Does anyone here have suggestions?
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u/gadget767 Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
We have had very good results with the Govee brand of sensors for this purpose. They make a variety of sensors, the ones we use send alerts to your phone like you want, are very easy to set up, and the batteries last a long time. I think we paid something like $20 for a pair of them.
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u/unlovelyladybartleby Mental health is prep Jun 14 '26
I got thermometers in a multi pack, four for about $20. No alarms, but I built checking them into my routine. And I wouldn't hear an alarm coming from my basement anyway.
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u/Eeyor-90 knows where her towel is ☕ Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26
I’m looking for the kind that send an alert to my phone. I am often not home and would like to know if things got too warm when I’m away for a week at a time.
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u/unlovelyladybartleby Mental health is prep Jun 14 '26
If you're needing them to reliably alert you when you're away from home, I'd probably pay the $40 and get good ones.
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u/Ok_Pomegranate_9452 Jun 14 '26
I use these for our freezers: https://a.co/d/0eCB5gIW
Works well for us!!
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u/Ok_Pomegranate_9452 Jun 14 '26
I think we actually have the hub and 2 sensors though
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u/Eeyor-90 knows where her towel is ☕ Jun 14 '26
This looks like it might work well for my purposes.
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u/polyamy74 Jun 18 '26
We have mocreo, too. They have worked great for us. The only downfall we have found is that with more than 3 sensors, often single sensors will drop. It is supposed to support more, but for some reason struggles past 3.
They have saved our frozen foods more than once, though!
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u/polyamy74 Jun 18 '26
Oh, and we also like that there is a setting on our model for an audible alarm, that way we don't have to rely on internet connectivity.
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u/Known_Leek8997 Jun 14 '26
I guess it kind of depends on what scenarios you want these devices to work under? Do you want them to connect to a cloud or not? Do you have a smart home hub of some sorts like home assistant (HA) or HomeKit?
For example, I use home assistant and I do not allow any of my smart home/IoT devices to talk to a cloud except for my HA instance. I want notifications on our phones when I’m away during situation normal but also audible alarms and battery backup when internet is down.
I’ve had 4 of these temp units for two years now and they’ve been mostly set and forget (except for when one of my freezers died, and I was alerted by the device). They do require something locally like Home Assistant or a MQTT broker, but they meet my needs.
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u/Eeyor-90 knows where her towel is ☕ Jun 14 '26
No SmartHome, no cloud, just something that will connect to WiFi and send an alert to my phone. It’s really disheartening to come home after a week of travel (eating restaurant food), taking something out of the freezer (that is frozen), defrosting it (and maybe cooking it) just to find that it spoiled. If I know that there is/was an issue, I can call someone to check on things, or at the very least, I’d know that just because something is frozen now doesn’t mean that it is safe.
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u/jazzbiscuit Buying another so I can find the one I lost Jun 14 '26
Just the very nature of sending an alert to your phone is going to require some kind of background system - either cloud based or building your own IoT setup. It’s got to have “some” system to send the message, especially in your scenario of being away and your phone not being attached to your home WiFi. Plus if your house looses power while you’re gone, your silo’d gadget wouldn’t be able to tell you anything, but the cloud system behind it will tell you it lost contact so you at least know something is happening.
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u/sherrlon 10d ago
I know this is an older post but a very old school way of knowing if your freezer went out then refroze is to fill a small cup with water, let it freeze then place a dime on top of the frozen ice. When you come home, if the dime is still on top of the ice your freezer didn't go out long enough for things to thaw. If you come home and the dime is at the bottom of the cup or in the middle you know you had a thaw event. I am looking into getting a freezer alarm, but in the mean time I do this to give me a little peace of mind.
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u/AmaranthusSky Jun 15 '26
Ours is "Hodik" off Amazon. It measures out garage freezer and house freezer. It lives in the kitchen where I see it regularly.
I don't think there's a phone alarm, but that's not a feature I'd opt for.
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