Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Temperature sensors (and water leak)

[Jay KapLon (Jay]

> From: Katie Henry <katie-henry [at] att.net>
> Subject: [C-L]_ Temperature sensors
> Date: January 24, 2026 at 8:09:51 PM EST
> To: Cohousing-L Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> 
> Each space has a small utility space heater. If a heater fails, the pipes 
> could be vulnerable to extreme low temperatures. If a fire sprinkler pipe 
> bursts, the damage can be catastrophic.
> 
> We placed one of these wireless thermometers in each space at the beginning 
> of last winter. They work great. 
> 
> The initial setup is not difficult. The tricky part is figuring out where to 
> install the wifi gateways so they're close enough to the sensors to reliably 
> pick up the bluetooth signal. We have four gateways scattered around the site.

At Eastern Village Cohousing we have a similar system that can cover both 
temperature alerts as well as water leaks and other conditions. However, the 
system we use does not use WiFi between the sensors and base stations so there 
is far less issue about where to locate base stations. The wireless 
communications protocol it uses can work for about a mile outside and still a 
good distance in or through buildings. Way farther than WiFi.

The base stations still need to be at a place with WiFi and power, but that is 
easy since they can be so far from the sensors. They even work in fridges and 
freezers and the batteries in the sensors last at least 2 years.

The system is YoLink and they have a ton of different sensor types: 
https://shop.yosmart.com/