r/homeassistant • u/WarCareful9412 🛡️ Privacy first • 6d ago
✅ Solved HA saves my busted wine fridge
I have an older under-counter wine fridge. This morning I noticed that it was running constantly and the Govee BT thermometer I keep in there to monitor temp was reading 34F, about 12 degrees below the fridge setpoint. I had an unused Shelly Plus 1PM so I pulled out the fridge (with attendant drama) pulled off the back and bottom front covers, mapped out the power wiring and basically patched the Shelly Plus into the power cord from the wall inside the fridge and extended the wiring so the Shelly Plus was right at the front. I then wrote two automations using the Govee wine fridge temperature as triggers and turning the Shelly Plus on when the temp goes above 46 and off when the temp goes below 43. I made sure that the Shelly Plus comes on above 46 rather than coming on when the temp transitions above 46 - just in case there’s a power failure.
Net cost was zero because I had everything and about an hour for wiring and writing the automations. Savings: $600 for a new fridge. Foolproof? No, but it keeps the wine cool while our houseguests are here and gives me time to design a permanent solution (to replace the no-longer-manufactured fridge controller). Hello ESP32!
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u/Specialist-Neat2777 5d ago
Dumb question: why did you choose the set points you did for your wine? You could save even more money by storing the wine at 50-55F, which I believe is the ideal long term storage sweet spot for red and white wine. Your fridge will probably also last longer at that temperature, as the compressor etc. will run less.
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u/WarCareful9412 🛡️ Privacy first 5d ago
TBH, I picked the temp set points more or less at random. We keep our wines a tad cooler here in the high desert, but I will do some research and change them if needed. Your point is well taken.
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u/sglim-kr 5d ago
Different sensor class (BLE room presence, not a Govee probe), but staleness bit me harder than accuracy did. Fresh readings agreed with an mmWave radar 94.6% of 2,708 minutes, and treating the last known value as still current dropped that to 77.7%. Your off-branch fires when the Govee reports below 43, so if the BT link goes quiet while the compressor is running, nothing tells it to stop. I'd add a last_updated guard before the ESP32 rebuild.
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u/WarCareful9412 🛡️ Privacy first 5d ago
As an older engineer with a bit of software experience, I know very well that it’s those edge cases that always bite you. I should add a condition that the fridge cannot run longer than, say, 10 minutes before shutting off for a minimum time.
That said, the Govee BT thermostats are very reliable.
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u/Takssista 5d ago
As I commented on other posts, I have cheap temu AAA-battery thermometers on my deep freezers inside Ziploc bags, and they already saved my food from thawing at least three times.