AcuRite06044M Wireless Temperature and Humidity Monitor Sensor

I'm impressed with the AcuRite 06044M wireless 433 MHz temperature humidity monitoring sensor. I was trouble shooting an electric LG clothes dryer exhaust venting issue and wanted to know the temperature in the output duct so I placed this sensor inside the duct and it kept on transmitting data back to the console. At first I had a problem discussed below. I expected the sensor to freak out, but it didn't. With the dryer set to normal, the highest temperature the sensor transmitted to the base console was 141°F. That's hot for a room sensor and this is one of the few that can do it.The next test was to repeat the test cycle with the dryer exhaust venting directly into the room. This time I could see the display of the unit by looking into the dryer exhaust duct where I had placed it. The base station doesn't have a humidity display. The temperature tended to stay around 125°F but did eventually get up to 136°F. The biggest surprise was the how low the humidity was. I was getting 8% humidity at the end of the cycle. House humidity is around 36% - 50% in March 2018 Indianapolis. I then did a comparison test using the house 100,000- BTU natural gas condensing furnace with the sensor in the output plenum. The house furnace after quite a few minutes would be putting out air at 130°-140°F at 4% humidity. Both the house furnace and clothe dryer have similar air sources and hence the same humidity for their working air.Problem: I found it was almost impossible to handle the sensor without bumping the rear Channel A, B, C, and C° - F° buttons causing the unit to change settings. The buttons actually stick out from the case. When I had the sensor in a dryer duct at first it did not connect to the base station and I decided to give up on the project thinking the sensor was probably dead. I started putting things away. When I got to the sensor, I really scrutinized it trying to see if there was anything obvious that might have caused the problem, then I noticed the channel had been switched from "B" to "C". When I changed it back to channel "B" everything started working great!I eventually disabled the buttons on the back of the sensor for Channel A, B, C, and C° - F°setting by removing the conducting actuators. I stored them in the sensor for safe keeping. The buttons now have a space in them allowing them to rattle. That is actually good because I'll remember the buttons have been intentionally disconnected. You could also probably just put a piece of tape over the circuit board contacts for the buttons leaving everything else intact.What would be nice additions? Jack to allow external temp. humidity pressure probe. It could replace the internal sensors when plugged in. A mini phono plug with lots of conducting rings appears popular got this function. The external probe jack would probably be a low cost addition. Other things like time-date calendar functions and data logging would nice, but not if they increase the selling price significantly. This is a robust relatively high precision full scale RF 433 MHz wireless temperature humidity monitoring sensor for not much money. If it got down to $5 I'd put them everywhere.

You might not expect very much from this little thermometer when you first see it, after all it looks pretty much like most of those little cheap plastic things that are supposed to tell you the temperature in your room. It actually costs less than many of them so you might simply skip right over it without giving it a second thought. But wait, for about twelve bucks this little gadget is worth consideration, if you happen to have the right AcuRite home weather station components or are planning to get one.I have one of their more deluxe weather stations, although it’s not necessary to have one to consider this sensor. My unit has one of those weathervane sensors that mounts on the roof to monitor rain, wind, temperature – actually five different things, which is why it’s called a 5-in-1 weather station. The indoor display shows you all that and keeps a record of the maximum, minimum and trends over time. What’s especially nice about the unit I have that it works with their app so I can check everything I mentioned and more on my phone or tablet device, not only from home but from anywhere in the world. I can even have it email me or text me an alert so it gives me extra security of knowing about temperature extremes that could cause pipes to freeze or even if the room is suddenly getting too hot, like in a fire. I can even add sensors for the freezer, swimming pool, fish tank and all kinds of other things that could be subject to temperature extremes.What this device does is gives me extra temperature and humidity readings for different rooms, like maybe the attic or storage shed. There are two different versions of it, one is just a sensor and the other is this one that adds a digital display. They are both priced the same so my logic is why not get the one that also gives me a remote readout as well as just being a sensor. I don’t know how they can afford to sell this thing with built in wireless connectivity to your weather station and phone app for only twelve bucks.Here’s something they don’t directly say but if you dig deep enough you can find some background information about it. The temperature and humidity sensors built in to AcuRite weather stations don’t last forever, after time they will start giving you strange results and keep telling you that they lost their signal or that the batteries are dead even if they are fresh. There is a replacement module that sells for something like four bucks for the rooftop unit but the one built in to the indoor readout can’t be replaced. Well, that’s not 100% true, what you can do is disable it in software and add one of these little remote sensors to replace it and the app won’t know the difference. So for a few bucks getting this thing essentially bought me a whole new weather stations.

They work, easily connect to my rtl433 setup. I did not realize that these do NOT come with batteries in the package.

I bought my first one of these about 2 years ago. Every so often I pick up another for a new room in my house. The temperature and humidity readings are transmitted on 433 MHz and can be picked up on a raspberry pi using RTL-SDR. At this point I can monitor just about every room in the house. These are relatively cheap and portable sensors for around the home.