(00986MA1) Wireless Digital Fridge/Freezer Thermometer with Alarms

UPDATE !/16/25: Still working great! But I just wanted to tell you that I bought a second unit for the bedrooms so we can check temps from the living room. You can't use a second set because it picks up the sensors in the fridge and freezer, even though I have batteries in the two new sending units which are I the bedrooms. So I have been using the monitor in the living room to keep an eye on the fridge temps. But now one of my friends has had a few power outages, so I'm going to give the second set to her. I am so glad I got this item. Now I can track the temp of my fridge and freezer without opening the doors! It was a simple matter of inserting batteries and placing the sensors in place. I have the monitor on the side of my fridge via the 4 magnets, but you could also hang it on a nail with the hole on the back. The sensors take 2 AA batteries each, and the monitor takes 2 AAA batteries. I used regular alkaline batteries (Duracell). I opted to not pay for expensive lithium batteries. So far, I have had no problems. I had a power outage in the recent past, and would have liked to know what the inside temps were in my fridge (without opening the doors), so I would know when to go get ice. The suction cups did not work, the sensor units fell within seconds of placement. I did not clean the wall prior to placement, so that could be a factor, but I would rather have them sit on the shelf anyway. On the back of the monitor, you have a switch for Celcius or Fahrenheit, as well as a reset switch. I do not use the alarms. You have to program the alarm settings if you want to use them. You can reset the hi and low reading by simply pushing the "clr" button. *** UPDATE 9-26-17 *** I had a 10 hours power outage about a month ago. This acurite unit performed FLAWLESSLY! I monitored the fridge and freezer temps constantly, and when the temps got too low, we went out and got bags of ice so we could put all the food in an ice chest. Then I put the sending unit in the middle of the ice chest to make sure the temp remained low enough. I can't love this item anymore than I do right now! Worth every penny in my book. NOTE: I still have the same batteries in it, and they are still going strong. I do not use the alarm. But I do check the high and low temps every morning and then reset, and I check and reset at bedtime. My freezer temp ranges from -5 degrees (f) to 10 depending on how much we open the door. It does not seem to affect my Duracell alkaline batteries. Very happy I did not pay for lithium batteries. UPDATE 8-27-18: This unit is still going strong! I recently replaced all original batteries (at about 8 months in), even though they were working just fine. I wanted to make sure the batteries did not die when I had a power outage. This is the best unit. UPDATE: 11-15-23 Still going strong! I can't tell you how many times this unit has helped during power outages. We don't turn the generator on until the fridge hits 40 degrees. We are constantly checking the temps day and night for piece of mind. I'm going to buy another set to measure for cold drafts in the bedroom. Two points of reference, one display. I'm amazed how many years we have had this, and it still works.

Before I knew my fridge was having an issue, this temperature reader gave me a leading headsup that something was beginning to go wrong with my new fridge, so I wasn't completely taken by surprise and was prepared and called the technician before the fridge totally went out. Technician came out and repaired my fridge one day before the warranty went out. And I lost no food. Very lucky. This temp reader saved all the food in our fridge. And caught a developing problem before the warranty expired. The device is well worth the money. It's also peace of mind, after traveling, to know if you are coming home to safe food. I originally bought it because I was concerned about long-term power-outages while I was on vacation without knowing if the food reached an unsafe temperature. (You can do a water test, to determine if your power was out for a long time, by using your freezer to do this, but when traveling red-eye flights, I generally am not well-rested enough to remember to do that, nor are my kids & spouse. I eat before I think when hungry & tired esp after a trip, so I wouldn't know food was at an unsafe temp until after I've eaten. I had a very old refrigerator whose door seal was so old that when we went out of town and turned the house heater off, the fridge seal became too brittle from the cold air in the house that it couldn't keep the fridge door closed. The fridge was cold at night when we arrived. If I had this temp reader at that time, I would have known if the food reached an unsafe temperature. I ended up tossing a lot of food out "just to be safe" because I didn't know what the worse case min temp was.so this device would prevent that issue. It's also has an audio alarm to alert you if the fridge rises to an unsafe temperature (the audio is optional and you can turn it off). It also tells you the highest max temp (I.e. warmest temp) your fridge has reached since you last pressed the clear button (which I always do before a trip.) Installation tip: When installing or replacing batteries, place the devices next to each other then place the batteries into the larger device (the one with the display) first before placing batteries into the small sensors, so the sensors synch properly to the display device. The sensors will slowly blink a red light (around 2 blinks in 30 seconds?) when they are trying to synch to the display (you'll know it's synched up when you finally see a temp show on the display.) It's an excellent temp reader.

I bought two of these because I wanted to monitor three areas: 1) the fridge compartment of my refrigerator, 2) the freezer compartment of my refrigerator, and 3) a deep freeze located in my kitchen about 15 feet from the fridge. I bought the first thermometer about 18 months ago and added the second unit a month ago. Here's what worked well: - The temps are accurate enough based on comparing with a couple of analog thermometers I have, with only a degree or two difference here and there. - The alerts are simple to set. - The alarms are loud enough. I can barely hear them upstairs in my bedroom, but I can hear them. If I'm awake, I can hear them anywhere in my house. Here's what did not work well: - There is a conflict between the two base stations and the four remote units. I've deployed both freezer remotes plus a single fridge remote. The freezer remotes each paired with their respective base stations, but the fridge remote paired with both. Not a bit deal to me--the fridge remote on my deep freezer base station is just a duplicate of the fridge remote. But if you have two fridges with freezers, you might wind up running into issues keeping the devices separate. The biggest issue I have is the alarm setting for my fridge's freezer. My freezer has a defrost cycle that heats up the freezer compartment to around 16 degrees for a very short time before rapidly cooling back to -10 degrees or so. My understanding is that this behavior is normal, and the food stored in my freezer will not be affected due it it's being frozen solid and the short duration above 0 degrees. But this of course means that I can't set my freezer remote alarm to the 0 degrees the FDA recommends as a minimum freezer temperature. The best that I can do to take advantage of the freezer alarm is to set it for 16-ish degrees in case my freezer completely fails. Overall, I'm happy with these thermometers. They have worked reliably so far. In fact, this alarm notified me last month that my freezer was too warm. Turned out the defrost wasn't working and the coils were iced up. I don't see any way around the daily temperature spike due to my freezer's defrost cycle, so I can't blame this device for not being able to tell if operation is normal or not. Actually, what would be great would be a freezer whose thermostat is tied in to the defrost process so it would know what acceptable temps are during normal operation and during defrost cycle. It could then send appropriate alarms.

I am so pleased with this thermometer and its sensors. I purchased it because the freezer failed on my 7 year old refrigerator, and I didn't know until it was too late to save the food in it. So several hundred dollars later, I am up and running again, but this isn't going to happen a second time! I found that setting everything up was a breeze - except the thermometer readout kept saying 71 degrees in the refrigerator and 70 in the freezer - it wasn't even that warm in my house! So I emailed the company, and never received a response - nice! But finally a light bulb went on in my head and I hit the "reset" button on the monitor - and then it started working just fine. You do need to use lithium batteries in the freezer sensor for the best performance. And I found that the suction cups simply don't work for more than a minute or two, so each sensor is clipped in place, which is not a problem, since the sensors come with built-in clips. As far as accuracy, I have no way to test, but it does show very satisfactory readings in both refrigerator (39 degrees) and freezer (3 degrees), on the Power Saver mode. That works for me. I think the thing I like the most about this monitor is that you can tell what the temperature is inside the unit WITHOUT opening the door - before I had one of those cheap dial thermometers that hung on the freezer shelf, and you had to open the door and really squint at it to see how cold it was in there (or not, for awhile, until the repair guy got here!). Well, I have learned my lesson and I consider the money I spent for this monitor to be an investment in making sure my refrigerator and freezer are running correctly and that the food is safe to eat! I almost forgot - each sensor has a "minimum" and "maximum" temp setting so you can see if any temperature variations have taken place recently. And there is an alarm for each sensor that will go off if the unit gets above your preferred setting for 15 minutes, but I have not yet set them up - I'm still cleaning up after the freezer disaster! Even if you're not having trouble with your refrigerator and/or freezer right now, you should get this monitor, because - believe me - someday you WILL, whether it's a power outage, or a fan goes out, or whatever. At least with this you'll have an early warning system before your food goes bad. I've been there for the past week, and you do NOT want to go there - it is very, very expensive!

I bought the Lithium batteries, and placed one transmitter in my kitchen freezer, and another in the deep freeze out in our garage. From what I could tell, everything was working fine when I purchased this last August, but I wasn't experiencing any problems with the freezers at that time. I would occasionally clear the hi & low temps, just to verify that everything was working as it should be. The receiver would normally register a new hi/low within an hour or so. However, I stopped doing that test after a few months. This summer, our deep freeze iced up, got up to 50deg and we didn't get any warning. Part of that was my fault (I had the alarm feature turned off). However, even if the alarm had been on - what I discovered was that these units were no longer reporting the temperature back to the receiver accurately, and the receiver gives no warning to let you know that the transmitter hasn't "checked in" recently. I have replaced the batteries, hit the reset button on the receiver, all with no improvement. Here's the latest example of the problem. Yesterday, I returned home after being away for a week. The deep freeze was reporting a -7 temp, with a typical hi/low range. I hit the clear button to zero-out the hi/low. Today - almost 24 hours later, the receiver STILL says -7 with no hi or low temp registered. There is no way the freezer has stayed at that exact temp during this time. And no hi/low tells me that the transmitter has not communicated with the receiver in almost 24-hours. - And there is nothing to indicate a loss of communication. I have swapped the #1 & #2 sensors between freezers with no real difference. During some of my testing, the #2 unit seemed to have died completely, so I left it sitting on the counter. After several days of not reporting anything to the receiver, it suddenly started working just fine again - and it is now accurately reporting the room temperature AND updating the hi/low regularly. In summary - this unit has one job, and it fails to do that reliably. What good is a temperature monitor that randomly works, and doesn't alert you when it's not working? The best improvement to this unit (apart from an overall reliability improvement) would be if they added a feature that let you know that the transmitters were no longer communicating with the receiver, rather than just displaying the last-known temp (which could be days old, and no longer accurate).

I'll preface this by saying I bought this b/c my relatively new fridge seems to hold temperature poorly, so I've had a small mercury type fridge/freezer thermometer (hereafter referred to as "Mercury") since shortly after I bought it. The problem with these is that you have to open the door to read it, and I wanted something that I could have a Min/Max reading throughout the day to note down in case I need ammunition to use against the warranty company. Being able to monitor both fridge and freezer temps is a big plus! BOTTOM LINE: for those not wanting to read my drivel below -- The AcuRite 00986, after a week of use, works great for me... note that I had no battery issues like some have had. See next part... BATTERY TIPS: doing a Google search on battery characteristics, I found information [link removed by Amazon...] on Alkaline versus NiMH versus NiCd versus other battery chemistries. One of the very useful pieces of info was operating temperature range. Of note: Lithium operates down to -40C (-40F). Alkaline: 0C (32F). NiCd: -40C. NiMH: -20C (-4F). Well, I have a zillion NiMH rechargeable batteries for kids toys and since I really only care if the freezer goes above a few degrees F, then I figured I'd try NiMH for my sensors, before shelling out $$ on the Lithium AAs. Results: my freezer sensor has captured a temp as low as -13F, so I'd say the NiMH option was a smart move. Even if I have to change the batteries weekly, I swap them out with another set of NiMH and put them on the charger for a few hours. So, my advice to you is to get an inexpensive NiMH charger from somewhere ($10 maybe) and a package of at least 4 (~$7-10), but 8 would be nice, NiMH batteries. I'd recommend any low-discharge NiMH, such as Sanyo Enloops. If you really want to cheap out, get NiCd, but they don't have the capacity that the NiMH batteries do. I know the investment is a tad high upfront, but one set of Lithium AAs is $6, and it's single use. With the NiMH, you can use them hundreds of times, and with 2 each in your fridge/freezer sensors, the back-up ones could be in your kids RC car, flashlight, etc. You'll save $$$$$$ in the long run, if you switch your household to rechargeable in general for AAA/AA type applications. Ok, all the important stuff over, here is the boring, wordy review/information: I received the AcuRite version (I'm guessing the Chaney branding has gone extinct) of this product, opened it, installed batteries (more about the batteries later), and within seconds, the transmitters were sending temperature information. I let it sit on my desk for a while, and after the sensors stabilized, they were within 1 degree Fahrenheit of each other, and right at what my home thermostat was set to. Good so far! I then moved to the kitchen and put the sensors in the fridge/freezer, and mounted the display on the side of the fridge next to the freezer. It probably took between 10 and 15 minutes for the sensors to stabilize at the fridge/freezer temps. I bought another mechanical dial type thermometer (Taylor Classic #5924) from Amazon so I could compare the results with the AcuRite and Mercury. I started my "analysis of performance" by placing AcuRite #2 and Taylor in the freezer, and AcuRite #1 and the Mercury in the fridge. They all seemed to line up well, and I monitored things this way periodically over the course of the next few hours. Because my fridge is my biggest worry, I then moved Taylor to the fridge as well, and placed it somewhere else in the fridge away from AcuRite #1 on a different shelf. This way I could tell if temps across fridge were consistent. Again, everything seemed to read similar temperatures, so I'm confident the AcuRite system is A-OK for me.

After loosing everything in my old refrigerator/freezer, I knew that I needed something that allowed me to easily keep tabs on the inside temp. This is exactly what I need. The display can be mounted anywhere on the side of the fridge (has magnets) or hung on the room wall (flip up tab to hang like picture). Digits are large enough that I can see it without my reading glasses. The high/low figures help you to see a temperature range; these digits are smaller in size. The sensors are easy to clip to a shelf; the suction cup option doesn't stay well on freezer wall. Freezer sensor needs the AA Lithium batteries (2) and regular Alkaline (2) ones work for sensor in refrigerator. Outside display takes two AAA Alkaline batteries. I'm thankful I already had the batteries at home! At first I had a problem getting the display unit and sensors to work. The instruction book had a trouble shooting guide; taking all the batteries out and having all 3 units side by side before re-inserting the batteries (display unit first) did the trick! Hope I never need to hear the preset temperature alarm! Once setup, you can clear the hi/low temperatures by pressing a "clear" button so that the hi temp isn't the room temp that was recorded before you put the sensors inside the fridge/freezer. I actually didn't put the second sensor in my refrigerator. Instead, it is in a upright freezer that is across the room (works up to 75 feet away according to instructions). Now I can easily check the temp of both freezers each time I open the refrigerator just to make sure all is working. I could never see the old inside thermometer so I missed any early signs that the old fridge/freezer was going bad. This digital thermometer with display on outside will give me some piece of mind! Update: as of 7/15/22 one of the temperature sensors totally stopped working and no temp is showing up on the outside monitor. I've changed the batteries and let the thing set for a while before restarting with no luck. The display goes back to all dashes before I put the batteries back in, still the sensor 1 does not register. I figured something was wrong when I changed batteries and still the outside display was stuck at 10F even after the sensor was left at room temperature for a while. I'm ordering another unit, but not happy that it failed so soon after purchase.

I'm giving this only three stars because it's not working the way I wanted, it works but not the way I wanted. I have used the analog thermometers for many years but they seem to all be different from each other and over time seem to not work right anymore. So I decided to try a digital unit. After researching and going over reviews I decided on this unit. Well I wanted to keep track of my fridge and my chest freezer, don't need to keep track of my fridge's freezer, if the fridge is fine then so is the freezer. I put new lithium batteries in both sensors and also the base unit and put the sensors in the fridge and the chest freezer, the chest is down in the basement right under where the fridge is in the kitchen. Between the chest freezer and the fridge upstairs there might be about 12 feet. The fridge sensor works just great but the freezer sensor only worked for about 3 minutes and then the base unit just showed the same numbers all the time. I tested the batteries and they were still full, put the sensor back in the freezer and after a while still nothing. I did a forced reset and the sensor worked again but quit. I did another forced reset and then put the sensor in the fridge's freezer and it works just fine. So, I am not happy with this! Even though the instructions say they can be 75 feet apart they can't even be 12 feet apart. So in my opinion this unit is not that great. I now need to find something better to keep track of my chest freezer in the basement.

Great product! I have a double door refrigertaor and a deep freezer. Makes me feel safe to be able to monitor the temperature in both. I actually turned down the freezing control to lowest setting in my deep freezer, when I realised that temperature was always showing as lower than -18 celsius. Also helped me realise that freezer in my samsung double door has very wide variation between -5 to -18 on daily basis. Made me realise that it would the reason why ice cream are kind of soft , in the freezer of my double door, compared to deep freezer. I guess that is the reason consumer product companies, don't put temperature displays on the common refrigerator.

Perfect... Item as described..quick delivery

Its very good peice .. and give you correct dgrees .. thank you

ممتاز يعمل منذ أكثر من عام وبنفس البطارية ، ولكن للأسف حاولت أشتري واحد آخر وجدت أن التجار كلهم رفعوا السعر ، وهذه حالهم كل منتج يتم التعليق عليه بأنه جيد من قبل الزبائن يقومون برفع السعر

Excelente funciona muy bien. Tiene un sensor para refrigerador y otro para congelador. Fácil de usar