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Easy to use Household Temperature Monitor?
Jim Carroll asks: "I awoke this morning to a gas furnace that conked out. The house was 60F. We had to turn the switch off and on to get it working again. Fair enough -- but I'm worried about it going off when I'm travelling and having the pipes freeze. I'm looking for an inexpensive, simple to use temperature monitor/sensor that would plug into a USB port, that would then log household temperature to a server, so that I can view it through my broadband connection while travelling. Sure, there are all kinds of complex X10 solutions; there seems to be a few kits out there; and some high end industrial applications, but these all involve spending a few hundred dollars. I want simple, straightforward, cheap -- plug it in, and it dumps the temp every few minutes to a file. But there doesn't seem to be anything that is simple, $10-20, that is consumer oriented? And if not, why aren't companies yet making this type of device?"
There is a fundimental flaw in your idea, which is why no-one has done it:
OK, you have a module plugged into your USB port providing temperature to the computer. Oops, the computer has crashed - now who takes care of the problem?
OK, the computer has rebooted, and sees that it is too cold in the house - the furnace has failed. OK, so now what does the computer do - start crunching SETI@Home packets to heat the place?
OK, the computer emails you. The email goes out, and then the computer picks it up and throws it into your mail queue.
OK, you don't have the computer getting your email - you get it via Webmail. So, your computer is in Ohio, and you are in Hawai'i. Now, what do YOU do about the furnace?
There is already a solution to the problem of keeping your pipes from freezing - it is called an electric space heater. Set it to 45 degrees. Place it in the basement away from any flammable items. If the furnace fails, the heater will automatically keep things from freezing.
Sure, a long term power outage will prevent this from working. Guess what - it would also prevent your computer from working. Yes, a UPS will keep the machine running for a while - how many minutes?
The other solution is even more ingenious - it is called "a neighbor".
Lastly, if you WANT temperature monitoring for your computer - look at Dallas Semiconductor's One Wire system. They have cheap sensors that will report the temperature over 1 wire - a little programming on the parallel port and you can read them.
But really, try the simpler solutions first. They will work better.
www.eFax.com are spammers
I'd think an even more Obvious answer is to have the switch/thermostat fixed. But maybe that's just me...