Looking for ways to upgrade your fridge without breaking the bank? While high-end refrigerators often come with all the latest bells and whistles, not everyone has the budget to splurge on a top-of-the-line appliance.
The good news is that there are ways to make your old or more affordable fridge smarter, too.
In this blog post, we'll explore some simple and affordable ways to give your fridge a high-tech upgrade, from adding sensors and smart plugs to using Home Assistant.
Whether you want to keep better track of your energy consumption, detect opened doors, identify problems before they occur or just add a touch of modern convenience to your kitchen, we've got you covered. Let's get started!
Making your fridge smart will enable to:
- Detect when the door is open to avoid loosing energy or food
- Identify fridge or freezer malfunctions and breakdowns to prevent food loss
- Knows the real energy cost of the appliance
- Detect power outages
What are we going to use:
Setup:
Theengs Plug is connected to Home Assistant and to the fridge to measure its power consumption.
Once connected the plug automaticaly discover the bluetooth sensors and create them into Home Assistant (Settings->Devices)
One Bluetooth sensor is installed in the fridge, the other in the freezer.
Use cases
Alert if a door remains open or appliance failure
We've implemented an automation with a timed pattern that periodically checks whether temperature readings fall within acceptable ranges. This ensures that your fridge maintains optimal cooling conditions and prevents food spoilage.
In this automation we send a notification to Home Assistant and Play a warning to a Google Home Nest Display.
The solution will be able to detect temperature pickes like below and warn you:
We could also add a door sensor to detect the problem sooner.
Here is the voice assistant notification:
Detect power outages
To detect power issue we will monitor the Theengs Plug connectivity status and trigger an alert if the plug is unavalaible or off
Also checking that the power consumption is not normal can be relevant.
Analyze energy cost
By adding the Riemann integration into Home Assistant you can have a kWh calculation of the Theengs Plug:
This feature will allow you to monitor the power consumption of your appliance, giving you an estimate of its energy costs.
By keeping tabs on how much energy your fridge is using, you can make informed decisions about how to conserve energy and reduce your electricity bills.
This is a great way to gain insight into your energy usage and identify areas where you can make adjustments to save money and reduce your environmental footprint.
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