The weather notification I set up in Pushover yesterday worked perfectly this morning – except for one small problem. The temperature on the outside thermometer hadn’t been updated since 9:15 last night. And the display on the bedroom thermometer showed “–“ for the outdoor temperature. I replaced the batteries outside and the display came back; tomorrow, maybe I’ll get correct data, too!
Or relatively correct data – I looked at the manual today and discovered that this particular (cheap) thermometer is only accurate plus-or-minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s more than good enough for knowing what’s going on, but not so great if I want to automate turning off the house fan when it gets too warm outside. Anyone have a good, relatively inexpensive, weather station to recommend?
And now that the weather is getting cooler, we’re beginning to think about electric blankets again. I’d bought a “Safe and Warm” brand blanket from Costco in 2010; it failed early this year. Costco didn’t carry that blanket any more (that should have been a clue) but Amazon did, so I bought one. Six weeks later, one of the controllers failed – the company said they could replace it “when we’re back in the office”. That was April 20th. I tried to contact them again in June and again last week – their voicemail says “use email”, and email doesn’t get answered. I’m well past my Amazon return period, but I decided to contact them anyway – after a few minutes on chat, I have a return label for a refund! Now I have to find a big enough box….