Internal/External Thermometer

January 1997

Background | Installation | Cost | Postscript

Background

For my birthday this year, my wife bought me this great little gadget. It is a thermometer that has a display for the internal and external temperatures. It also has a warning indicator if the external temp drops into the range where black-ice can form.

We first saw this in one of those catalogs that they put on airplanes to tempt you into buy sh*t you don't need while you are bored for several hours. ;-) I mentioned that I thought it was cool, and Susan remembered. It is from a company called Brookstone. They have stores in malls and also have catalog sales. I have not seen this product anywhere else.

Installation

The installation was actually more of a pain than I would have thought. You have to run the sensor outside to a protected location. The instructions reccommend the inside of the front bumper. To do this, you must get through the firewall. I found a rubber grommet that allowed some other wires to pass between the engine and the cabin, but the sensor would not fit through the opening in the rubber. I ended up having to take the grommet out, run the sensor through the hole and then put the grommet back in. Getting the rubber out and back in was the pain. It did not want to cooperate.

Once the sensor and wire was through the firewall, the rest was pretty easy. I routed the wire around the edge of the engine compartment and used electrical tape to secure it to other wires. The sensor has some sticky stuff on it, so you just peel the paper and stick it where you want it.

The display comes with some velcro and mounts to any vertical surface. It runs on batteries, so they use velcro to allow you to easily remove it to change the battery.

Picture

Cost

 Thermometer

$25

Postscript

The product is pretty good but there are a few things I don't like:

  • No light. You have to turn on the cabin light to see it at night.
  • Having the sensor in the bumper doesn't work very well. If you are sitting in sunlight, the bumper heats up very quickly and you get a high reading. Also if you are not moving, the heat from the engine causes high readings, so only trust it if you have been moving pretty good for a couple of minutes.
  • The location of the readout is right above where the heater dumps into the cabin, so if the heater is on, it reads very high for the inside temp.
  • The warning for ice goes off every minute if the temp is below 35 or so. Very annoying, so I usually shut it off. I had a different kind in another car that beeped when it crossed into the danger zone, and then just kept the warning light on. This one beeps every 60 seconds. Argh! At least you can turn this feature off.
  • I would have provided an easy way to connect to the vehicle's electrical system so the battery is not neccessary.

    Even with the above gripes, I still like it. I am a gadget and info junkie, so I can't imagine not having it now.

    3/14/97 - The picture above shows where I initially installed it using the velcro that they supplied. It did not hold well and kept falling off. I have since moved it up below the speedometer/tach so it sits on a horizontal surface, and I stuck it there with double-sided tape. It stays much better and is easier for me to see. The other location made it visible for the driver and passenger, but it just wouldn't stay.

    		•