Hot water boiler monitor

I have an oil burning forced hot water boiler as the primary heating source in my house. Has anyone come up with a way to monitor the appliance? I have been looking for a temperature sensor that I can attach a probe to and then tape to the pipe but haven’t found one that is currently available. I consider myself relatively new to ST and home automation. Any help would be appreciated. ~Jason

What country are you in? Device selection does vary somewhat. :sunglasses:

Also, what model, if any, of the smartthings hub do you have?

I am in the Northeast United States and I have version 2 of the Hub

Then it’s pretty simple. As you mentioned, you’re going to use a probe that can handle the temperatures and tape it to the boiler with the appropriate insulation. And wire it to a device that can communicate to smartthings.

See the following discussion thread:

(The topic title is a clickable link)

Thank you! I just ordered a Sonoff TH16 with the DS18B20 sensor. In reading some of the forum posts it appears the device is easy enough to flash with the ST compatible firmware. I’ll keep you posted, thanks again! ~Jason

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After attempting to flash the Sonoff device with the new ST firmware I’m pretty sure I bricked the device. Giving up on this option, thanks for your help though. ~Jason

A little late but… Way back when I had an iobridge. Basically a 4 channel digital I/o plus a to d converter. This was before smartthings existed. When I bought v1 smartthings I adapted an xml parsing handler to read the real time data from the iobridge. I had the temps logged as well as a pulse counter recording the seconds the oil pump ran… To get estimate of oil used. Fast forward…iobridge is no longer available and there is no good way to do a to d to zigbee or zwave outside piecing things together. I moved…took it all with me and am now trying to find a better way to do what you are asking. I need to…brainstorm… can a basic sensor with temp monitoring be deconstructed and a probe wired in place?

My zigbee creation has 4 analog channels, 4 digital outputs, and 2 digital inputs. And you can optionally add an arduino for infinite additional features.

Your setup sounds interesting with the oil burning forced hot water boiler. Monitoring it is a great idea! I can totally relate to being new to smart home stuff.

For temperature sensors, you might want to check out some online DIY communities or electronics stores. They often have nifty gadgets that could work for your setup. Have you considered looking into smart home platforms or apps that support temperature monitoring? That could be another option.

Anyway, I hope you find a solution soon! Good luck with your boiler monitoring project. And by the way, if you ever need furnace repair Hamilton, I’m sure there are local experts who can help you out. Stay cozy!

talk about old thread…

with esp32 being so inexpensive to play with, I started messing with loading Konnected.io firmware on an esp8266 board and using a DS18B20 probe to monitor my Pond water temperature. The firmware supports these probes and DHT22 sensors natively. I setup another board to monitor the hot water tank temperature and use a CT relay to know if the thing is heating or not. The firmware is designed for security systems (plus the 2 temp sensors) so I have a fake window/door and use open/closed to show heating element on/off. Of course I also use Konnected for bringing the wired security system into ST.