Hey guys looking for a device that sits outside the freezer but uses a probe to go inside the freezer. I want it outside as it more of a possibility for it to be wall plugable. Battery life will be longer and the range will be further. Just looking for a simple device nothing crazy
I like the Hue motion sensor that sits inside of my fridge's freezer.
Battery life has been great.
I also have a wireless La Crosse dumb thermometer with its own sensors, stuck to the fridge by its magnet, that shows the temperature of the freezer and fridge sections. I like that a lot too.
No wires penetrating the shell.
The Ecowitt weather system temp sensors are great for fridges and freezers. There is a community app to get data from the Ecowitt ecosystem into Hubitat too.
They are AA powered devices, though battery life seems very good. I can't remember the last time I had to replace the batteries.
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I would prefer to have something local like Z-Wave. I don't really like connecting to third party web services is just a recipe for failure
I believe the Ecowitt Hubitat integration pulls data out of the receiver. The cloud connection is not required.
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The Hue is Zigbee.
Ambient Weather is a white label reseller of Ecowitt. It's all good stuff.
I believe Ecowitt base stations can pick up AW sensors, but the reverse is not true.
Everything @Horseflesh is saying is true. I had a large Z-Wave sensor in my garage freezer for years. After buying an Ecowitt weather station I decided to switch to an ECOWITT WN30BL. Less than $15 and with the community Ecowitt integration everything is local.
You'll see the "freezer probe" in the above picture.
I can then use this in an instance of the Notification app:
Having defrosted the freezer last week, I can attest that the notifiers works all too well. 
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If you're not into weather, why do it? The Hue motion has worked great for me.
If you prefer Z-Wave, I use these in my freezer and refrigerator: HomeSeer HS-FS100-L Z-Wave Dual Sensor & Buzzer
I'm not using the light sensor probe. I'd say they're 98% reliable - once in a while one reports a high temperature report, but then the next report is back to normal. Battery life is ok, but not great. I use Eneloop rechargeable AAA batteries which have good performance in the cold.
Maybe the fridge is going into defrost mode?
Standard response from me on this one.
Wifi // konnected // ds18b20 // nodemcu.
Updates every few mins, costs pennies.
thanks everyone. So you have no issues getting a signal out of your freezer with a sensor inside of it? I was thinking that I would need to use a devices that has a wired probe on it. But you are saying I can just put a battery powered sensor in it?
I've got the Zigbee Hue motion sensors (with motion and lux reporting both disabled) in all of our fridges and freezers here. No signal problems. Average battery life is over a year in the fridges, and over two years in the freezers.
If the Hue motion price is indeed $45 as I just looked up, cost is in Ecowitt's favor if you need multiple sensors.
I've used both Zigbee contact sensors that happened to also have temp reporting, and these Ecowitt sensors, and surprisingly have never had a problem getting a signal out of a fridge or freezer. I much prefer putting an Ecowitt sensor inside the box compared to using a sensor with a probe. It looks better, it doesn't mess with the door seal, signal is fine, and battery life is long enough that I don't worry about it.
(I wish there was a Zigbee temp sensor that I liked as much as the Ecowitt sensors... Cheap, accurate, long battery life, uses AAs.)
I do see fluctuations when the freezer goes into defrost, but those max out around 20°F. Once in a while the freezer throws a single report > 60°F and the refrigerator once reported > 90°F. Overall it's not a big issue... I've had a total of 3 such reports in the past 12 months between both sensors.
In my case, using the Z-wave device I linked above, no connection issues at all. I have a bunch of other Z-wave devices in the kitchen, including one wall switch directly next to the refrigerator and another maybe 4 feet away.
Have you looked at YoLink? Smart Fridge – YoLink (yosmart.com)
There are community hubitat drivers here for that system and they make temperature sensors that you can place directly in your freezer... I only recently learned of YoLink because I needed some long-range sensors and I have been pleasantly surprised how well they work and work in hubitat and their costs are very reasonable.
Long range z-wave is now in beta testing, maybe that.
