When we talk about air pollution or air quality in general, we tend to think about the air outside of our homes. We think that the air in our households is somehow clean and uninfluenced. This cannot be further from the truth.

The air in our homes can often be too dry or too moist, leading to the formation of all kinds of allergens and mold. In turn, these air conditions in our home can cause material damage on our valuable possessions like our refrigerators and similar appliances, but then also on various instruments like guitars or pianos, or old valuable books and furniture in general. On the more dangerous side, it can have implications over our health. It may worsen asthma, cause allergies and rashes. Often, we have no idea what is the cause of this issue.

All of these conditions can be easily solved if we control the indoor environment with some of the smart thermometers today. In this part, I chose and would like to present and review a few best smart thermometers found in the market today. They all have different features, levels of satisfaction and ways of usage, so here we go:

 

SensorPush Wireless Thermometer and Hygrometer – Our pick

This best smart thermometer works via a flawlessly designed mobile application that will even make you forget you have such a device installed in the first place. With just a few simple steps, you can connect the sensor of this best smart thermometer and set up how you wish to get alerts.

Features

• Great range using Bluetooth 4.0
• One device with app installed can monitor unlimited sensors
• Great battery life
• Waterproof
• Temperature Range -40°F – 140°F (-40°C – 60°C)

Set up is a piece of cake. Simply place the sensor on the screen of your smart device, follow it when it moves and just add a name and start setting what you need. Basically, you can set the temperature and humidity to a minimum or maximum and get a notification on your smartphone once the data is below or above those numbers. Regardless if you are away or sleeping, the app will continue to notify you of any air changes in your home. This best smart thermometer is very easy to use!

When the application is open, it’s uploading the sensor data in just seconds when you pass by, and when it is in background mode it continues to collect sensor data, but as a background app. Even if your phone is powered off, the sensor will continue to collect data for two weeks or more. When you turn on your phone, the app will immediately get in range and display all the data.

I used the thermometer to measure the temperature in the freezer since some of the products there were not as solidly frozen as they were supposed to. The only difficulty here is that I needed to get a bit closer to the freezer to collect the data. Otherwise, it worked just fine and indicated that even though the temperature in the freezer was set as needed, something was not right – later I found out the door was not closing properly. This saved me from the trouble of paying a higher electricity bill and throwing away tons of food.

It’s one of the best smart thermometers I’ve ever used. Some would argue that the price may be high, however, if you wish to protect some delicate objects like instruments or old books, then maybe the investment for such best smart thermometer is not so high.

Pros

• Powerful range
• Very accurate and reliable measurements
• Compact and easy to use
• Great battery life

Cons

• Requires a gateway to connect to your phone

Netatmo Weather Station – Runner-up

The Netatmo smart thermometer can be used with both iOS and Android devices. The designers of this smart thermometer made sure to include options for measuring the temperature, humidity and barometric pressure, as well as the CO2 concentration and level of sound inside your home. These data are reachable via an installed app on your smart device, which is pretty easy to configure. Once new data are gathered, you’ll get a real-time notification on your phone.

Features

• Real-time notifications
• Works with Amazon Alexa
• Different add-ons including rain and wind gauge
• Weather forecast
• Temperature range: -40°F to 150°F (-40°C to 65°C)

If you wish, the app for this Netatmo smart thermometer allows you to connect a few weather stations on your phone. Since there’s an outdoor module as well, you can use it in your garden for best plant watering practices. It’s fully waterproof too!

The coolest part is that this thermometer is compatible with Amazon Alexa, so you can actually ask the device for some readings by using your voice.
In all, this thermometer’s main job is to make the quality of life better for us, by helping us optimize the conditions we live in. On top of that, it can greatly help in planning any outdoor activities by using the Rain and Wind Gauges.

Regardless of the good performance of this smart thermometer, the quality of the device is not so good. Many reviews indicate that the unit works well for a year and then issues seem to appear, like dropping the network at times and displaying huge gaps of data.

It appears that their customer support is not so great as well. There are a fair amount of complaints that the customer support tried every mean of blaming the owners for the dysfunctional device, before finally admitting that the very device has a very limited lifespan. This is not pleasant news since there are a number of alternatives out there in the quest for the best smart thermometer.

Additionally, the outdoor module is battery operated and you need to change its batteries pretty often, which is really not the way how the best smart thermometer should work.

Basically, this is a fairly good smart thermometer and pretty easy to use, however, its life span is not so great. And if you face issues, there’s a big possibility that the customer service guys will not cooperate.

Pros

• Compatible with Alexa
• Real-time notifications
• Easy installation and free app
• Provides weather forecast

Cons

• Some battery problems

Temp Stick Wireless Temperature Sensor

One of the best smart thermometers out there today is the Temp Stick designed by Ideal Sciences. It’s easy to use, all-in-one wireless sensor, whose job is to monitor the temperature and humidity conditions. All you need to do is to connect the sensor to your WiFi network and start receiving real-time notifications once there’s a change in the temperature or humidity readings. You can use it on any smart device.

Features

• 1+ year battery life
• Unlimited history of readings
• Text and email alerts
• Temperature range: -40°F to 125°F

This smart thermometer is battery operated (6-12 months of battery lifespan, depending on the way of usage), so you can place it anywhere and you don’t need any gateway devices. The set-up is very easy – just add the batteries (included) to your wireless sensor, connect to the sensor with your smartphone, tablet or pc, sign up and follow screen instructions to receive temperature and humidity data.

The best part is that you can get an unlimited history of sensor readings and you don’t need to subscribe to anything. Just customize how often you’d like to get notifications (1-12 times hourly) and set a minimum and a maximum temperature limit. This Temp Stick thermometer will accurately deliver on all parameters.

I bought it to monitor the indoor conditions in my house out of town. It can be really freezing during the winter, so sometimes I need to drive up to my house and check if anything is frozen. But I’ve deiced to place this smart thermometer unit there instead, and now I only drive up there when I get a notification for suspiciously low temperature. It really saves me time and gas money.

The Temp Stick is a neat little device, available at a great price too. The only reported issue so far is that the sensor doesn’t seem to support 5GHz Wifi, but supports only 2.4GHz. This may be an issue for someone.

Apart from this, the Temp Stick is not the best smart thermometer out there but it is one of the best and I would recommend it to anyone.

Pros

• Text and email alerts
• Great battery life
• Unlimited history of readings
• No gateways or wires needed

Cons

• No warning when the battery is low
• Some problems with set-up

Verdict

There are hundreds of smart thermometers on the market today, so prior to buying any of them you need to figure out what you need and do a bit of product research. This is actually easy since there are thousands of reviews for each of the products.

The same goes for the three best smart thermometers we reviewed above. They all seem to offer a great array of options, however, the Netatmo thermometer seems to be the trickiest one to use due to some quality issues and bad customer support. And compared to the performance, it’s not very cheap.

As for the Temp Stick, even though it seems to be the priciest, it works pretty well and received virtually no negative comment. It’s best used if you wish to place it in a remote location and its price is not so high when compared to installing a full temperature monitoring system.

However, if you are looking to get a great performance at a more affordable price, then the SensorPush one may just do the job. It can help you protect your indoor valuable objects and furniture with no effort.

When making a choice, it really depends on what you’re looking to monitor and how much of an investment you’re willing to make, for both money and patience.

Read next: Best Smart Air Purifier Review