After the hot water system and heat failed in his holiday house, Matt Tilchen needed a way to check that on the new hot water system regularly without having to physically visit the house. Although sending sensor data via the Internet sounded promising, that would incur an unwanted expense of a connection just for some data. Instead he used an Arduino combined with a DS18B20 temperature sensor and a GSM Arduino shield. On a regular basis the Arduino would send the temperature data via SMS to Matt's phone - or if a sudden change in temperature occurs it would SMS immediately. And if it didn't send a message after a period of time - he also knew there would be a problem. Anything to avoid a repeat of the damage shown below:
For details on how the system works and to recreate your own, click here. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.
To get started with your own temperature-controlled projects, consider using our TEMP: DS18B20-based temperature sensor module:
... or our HUMID: Humidity and Temperature sensor module based on the popular DHT22 sensor unit. Both modules are fully documented and easy to get started with. These are only two of over a dozen of our sensor and outputs modules available now from Freetronics!
