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….

The sensor I mentioned yesterday failed again today. Fortunately, I had a replacement available from the large supply from our neighbor – the only tricky part was figuring out how to take off the old one and mount the new.

I was afraid I might have to remove the whole thing (which the installers had glued onto the window frame), but I eventually discovered how to detach the sensor from the mounting plate, and then the rest was trivial. Convincing the alarm panel to use the new sensor instead of the old one was slightly annoying (the instructions are written for professional installers, not me), but I finally found the trick (delete the old one first – then add the new one).

When something goes wrong with the alarm system (such as a failed sensor, a low battery, or an intrusion), it calls my cellphone. If I had a modem on the cellphone, it’d send information about what was happening – but I don’t, so it’s like the proverbial Jewish telegram: “Begin worrying. Details to follow.” If I’m at home, I don’t have to worry for long, but if I’m away, it’s a different story. So now I’m in the process of tying the system to Pushover so I can get details – I set up the account, and it should send both of us a weather briefing in the morning. If that all works, I’ll set up the alarm notifications.