Multipurpose sensor for freezer alarm?

I have a refrigerator in my garage whose freezer door sometimes pops open if you slam the fridge door too hard. There is breastmilk in there so it’s critical that it not stay open for too long. I bought a multipurpose sensor with visions of using it as a contact sensor to alarm after N minutes, but there seems to be too much space between the freezer door and the fridge itself for it to work that way.

Questions:

  1. What is the minimum distance between the two pieces of the sensor to register as “in contact”? (I can’t seem to find this information anywhere.)

  2. Assuming the above value is too low to work for my use case, would it be possible for me to tap into the accelerometer instead to detect when the orientation of the sensor is greater than N degrees away from the door-closed state?

Thanks in advance for your help! I’m new to this stuff.

My first instinct here would be to get a couple of self-adhesive hooks - one for the freezer door and one for just around the side, and stretch an elastic hair tie between them. Then if the door “pops open” it should pop right shut again. A bit more to the point than simply being told about it after it’s happened.

I just fitted a sensor on the freezer door, so my beer doesn’t get warm :upside_down_face: I found the smartthings multi purpose sensor doesnt work with such a big gap, so I tried an Aqara sensor which worked just fine with the big gap. But I then needed a smartthings smart plug in the garage to repeat the zigbee signal to the Aqara. The ikea plugs didn’t repeat to it, so i removed them from the garage and used them in the house instead. I then used webcore to alert me if the doors stay open for more that 5mins.

True! But where’s the fun in that? :slight_smile:

Do you happen to have a photo of this implementation? Thank you!

I will be home in about 3 hours, I will then take a photo and post it here.

I’ve got Iris sensors inside all my fridges and freezers. Since those are hard to find, I’m experimenting with Ecolink’s new zigbee sensor. So far it’s been working great.

ST multi in a sealed bag, 2 * 10 cm battery wires to AA hann outside the hidged lid.
Works great with WebCore.

Here you go. There is 1cm gap between them.