The Rochester Remote Ready dial (R3D) costs only $15 retail, and is easily put on by the homeowner but the propane company will install it for $50 if the homeowner is squeamish about propane (nobody on a.h.r would be that squeamish but such people exist).
From there, almost any remote would work. The one that is most often suggested in our internal email discussions is the $190 "tank utility" which works on Android and iOS
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Painting the tank with WiFi is nearly trivial since any decent WiFi transmitter can go 10 miles and nobody's propane tank is that far away! :)
The WiFi problem is mostly that the tank utility is the limiting factor, but two nanos or picos can be set up if the tank is more than a few hundred feet from the house.
Solar powering the batteries is also an option, but if a second transceiver is required, then the limitation is 300 feet without adding a repeater with POE.
But, from my experience, most propane tanks are easily within 100 feet of the house, so, almost any WiFi transmitter can do that trivial distance (we use Ubiquiti exclusively).
The Ubiquiti forums are as good as a.h.r and the opposite of what you find on the apple forums.
Wow, you must have one hell of a wifi transmitter. Around here, even the commercial public ones, eg Optimum Cable Wifi hotspots are terrible. Almost everywhere I've tried to connect, it's spotty at best, works one min, gone the next, even when standing still. Useless in the car. The success I've had has been at Starbucks, stores, restaurants, hotels, etc, but that's limited to within the store, maybe the parking lot if you're lucky. At home here, I just have a garden variety old G router, but if I had a propane tank, it probably would reach it. I go diagonally, from upstairs to downstairs across the whole house to the Tivo and that works.
That seems reasonable, the tanks I've seen have always been within 50 ft or so of the house.
It sounds like you are now trying to claim that in your example, the pool heater is in fact turned off before the people go on vacation, but because it had been on, they hadn't realized how low the propane tank had gotten. If that's the example you're now trying to use, then the simple solution is for them to check the propane level before they leave on vacation.
I can see the utility of being able to remotely check the level, but it can't substitute for carelessness.
Actually the smartphone/remote monitoring is a substitute for some level of carelessness. Like he pointed out, you could forget to check while leaving for vacation and with remote capability, you can check, recover, etc. Same thing with internet capable thermostats. If you leave for a week and can't remember if you turned down the heat, it solves that problem too.
How often do *you* check the level of your water tanks? I know I don't check ever - simply because they only run dry when something unforseen happens.
Had I a warning system in place, my phone could alert me when my 15,000 gallon tanks run low for whatever reason.
The propane is the same. Most people have at least one 1,000 gallon tank (but some have the smaller 500 gallon tanks).
Over a period of ten years, it will probably never run empty, except .... when something unforseen happens (for whatever reason).
Whatever that reason is, the monitor will alert you. It's not more complicated than that.
What I gather, from this discussion, is that NOBODY here has any experience whatsoever with propane tank-level monitoring equipment.
I just ordered the gauge so I will put it on my tank (it's just two screws), and at least I'll be "ready" but I probably won't use it myself (but others will).
So we will let *you* know how it works out. Thanks!
Yes. But that was just an example. The point is that people *do* unexpectedly run out. The fact that it happens unexpectedly means that the propane supplier's calculations were off.
Why would the propane suppliers' calculations be wrong? The only logical answer is that "something" happened that the propane supplier doesn't know about.
I actually have explicit details on what happened recently with a neighbor who did a kitchen remodel, but I don't want to interject their personal situation.
Suffice to say that if a tank runs dry, "something" happened that someone forgot about (aka someone made a mistake).
The whole point of the monitoring equipment is to prevent that. It's not really rocket science.
Except that you miss the point that something 'else' can be unforseen.
Out here, everyone is on what the industry calls "autofill" (as opposed to "willcall"). That means the propane company decides when to fill the tanks.
Generally they're pretty good, in that they calculate to fill the tanks at about 30% but they goof when something "unforseen" happens.
It's not really any more complicated than that. I know many people *never* check the level of their tanks and they never run dry ... except ... when something unforseen happens.
PS: Same with all our water tanks since everyone out here has their own well.
The dumbest person in these newsgroups is clearly the Jamie JK moron, although Lewis is extremely close so I'd call the dumbest a tie between them.
The next-dumbest person is the Jolly Troll.
You and Rod Speed aren't as dumb as you sound; it's just that you're so uneducated that you just sound dumb.
For example, you can't comprehend the concept that putting a pillow over the iPad screen isn't the same thing as turning the screen off.
You and Rod Speed both actually said that (you said to use the "case" but since I don't have a case, it's going to have to be my pillow).
People don't actually get as uneducated as you two are, since you don't even have a clue that putting a pillow over an iPad isn't the same thing as turning the screen off.
Ooops. Sorry. You did agree that the solution I asked for advice on could be useful.
You understood both the problem set and the variety of solutions, but you come from the a.h.r group which is a overall reasonable bunch of ladies and gentlemen.
It was the other naysayers whom I was commenting about, all from the iOS group. They provided zero value - and that's more than they usually provide
- but I needed them because more than half the potential users are on Apple mobile devices (in fact, we've only tested it on iOS so far).
Here is a picture of the utility - as we tested on iOS, and which had a few problems on iOS and with the company that makes the utility, which we're working out now as we speak (see details below):
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So it looks like *we* will be the first ones to test this out of the complete set of people on all three crossposted newsgroups.
Here's a series of informative emails related to the problem and the solution.
*HERE IS THE ORIGINAL EMAIL DESCRIBING THE INITIAL PROBLEM SET:* Hi all. I had the lovely experience of running out of propane yesterday. The Lochinvar broiler we have for hot water really does not like to run out of gas and requires bleeding out the oxygen from the lines before it will fire back up. Total pain and causes the whole house to smell like propane. Anyway even though we are on the automatic top off plan it seems the propane company must forget from time to time to fill our 1,000 gallon propane tank. So I starting digging around and found this unit for $189
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Connects to wifi, uploads a reading every 6 hours, batteries last 2.5 years and provides a flexible alerting system for when your tank gets low. Also gives you the ability to check the level and usage over time. Only requirement is to swap out the dial for one that is R3D compatible (looks simple)
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Tank Utility will contact and schedule that on your behalf. Anyways I thought I would share. Once I get it installed I?ll let you know how I like it.
*HERE IS THE MOST RECENT EMAIL DESCRIBING THE UTILITY ON IOS:* I got my tank utility device and set it up over the weekend (still waiting on the R3D dial to be replaced by the propane company because they don't allow me to do it myself). Pretty simple (although pro tip - when connecting to a wifi that isn't connected to the internet you have to force the iPhone to connect to the network by enabling airplane mode and then enabling wifi. If you don't do that then the phone will happily keep using it's LTE connection instead of the wifi without internet). Monitoring option is pretty simple. I sent in feedback to be able to support a second alert email address, then I can put my gas account manager's email address on it at say 35% and mine on it at 25%.
I don't have any experience with a propane monitoring system, but if you want Wireless/Remote tank monitoring device so I can help you. I am using different types of Remote tank monitoring devices. But I think Level Pro Sentinel Remote tank monitoring device is the best device in the market. Know about this device you can visit Icon Process Controls website. You can also contact with them via phone: 905-469-9283 or email: snipped-for-privacy@iconprocon.com.
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