Customer Reviews

Taylor Digital Stick On Refrigerator Thermometer

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Recently purchased a side-by-side refrigerator/freezer and was curious
as to the temperature in each compartment. Moistened the suction cup
per instructions and affixed it to the freezer door's interior, set at
the recommended mid-range temperature. Checked the temp the next morning and it registered 17 degrees fahrenheit. Had to take a plastic knife to
pry the suction cup off of interior freezer door. I next placed this
thermometer inside the refrigerator door, about chest level above the one-
gallon storage shelf for easy viewing. Again with refrigerator temp set at the recommended mid-range temperature, I returned to check on the temp the following morning and it registered from 38.7 to 41.5 degrees fahrenheit depending on late night door openings. Periodically repeated this phase of refrigerator testing for a month to confirm the absence of
sporadic readings. No problem with the suction cup dislodging from the
interior refrigerated surfaces. Great buy for the low cost ..... all is
needed is to replace the button cell lithium battery and you can regularly monitor the cooling capability of your refrigerator/freezer and additionally give you an early warning sign of when you need to purchase a newer, more reliable appliance.

My two main gripes are that (1) the suction cup tends to work rather poorly at cold temperatures, which is something you'd think they would have considered for this particular device, and (2) that it can be very hard to read the digits at an angle or in the refrigerator lighting, and if you remove it to read it, it will quickly fog up and also start heating almost immediately, resulting in an inaccurate reading. The second point is really mostly a nitpick, as it would be hard to fix this without going to a more expensive backlit LCD display, but the first point is a fundamental flaw.

This is a cheaply designed thermometer, the LCD screen is see-through, but the background screen color is nearly the same shade of grey as the letters making it difficult to read against a dark background. It takes a reading every 2.5 minutes, and it took 20 minutes to register a change of 3 degrees. The accuracy seems to be +/- 0.5 - 1.0 degree F. Has a power switch and F/C button under a sealed rubber flap.

At room termperature, the reading was about 7 degrees higher than a measurment that I took using a Fluke DMM w/temperature probe attached.
It was also about 5 degrees higher then the meter on my room termperature control. So I am be bit concerned the accuracy. I've only just received it today but may echange it if it proves to be inaccurate. The thermometer is made in China.

This thermometer is beautiful...the transparent LCD is something I'd expect to see at an Apple Store. Compare it to the relatively drab Sunbeam 91647. I bought two of them in mid 2006 for the design alone. It really seems to be neglected by Taylor though...little things like the erroneous lower temperature limit of minus 4 deg F (it's been corrected as of Feb 2008 to minus 40 deg F on the Taylor website but I still see "minus 4" on Amazon). I've confirmed it measures down to at least minus 24 degrees F, troubleshooting a freezer that was getting too cold, with a regular analog thermometer for comparison.

The bigger limitation, as mentioned by others here, is the severely limited fastening mechanism...a suction cup mounted directly on the back. No up/down angle adjust possible, crucial with LCDs. In freezers, with metal wire shelves, there's essentially no way to mount it readably except laying on a shelf, where it is guaranteed to get knocked over. Much better would be a lever or universal joint setup, attached to a clamp or the existing suction cup. It could then be mounted to the underside of a glass shelf in a refrigerator, while being able to orient it left to right and up and down so it's at a readable angle. It would also be more easily mounted near the front of the refrig/freezer, where it's less likely to be knocked over or obstructed by refrigerator contents. Front locations can also give a "free" backlit LCD effect, from the refrigerator light shining through the clear LCD. A universal joint-based mounting mechanism also would address the viewing angle problem...the LCD is more readable (darker) if you tilt the top edge forward.

Another improvement would be decreasing its height to the bare minimum over the height of the LCD... the less its height, the lower the chance of getting knocked over by shelf contents.

Also, one of the best reasons for getting an electronic refrigerator themometer is the ease of adding a max/min temperature function. Extremely useful--while away for a long weekend or vacation you could have a power outage that let the refrigerator reach 60-70 degress and never know. It's almost criminal to not include this, as it costs essentially nothing extra...some more firmware code in the existing processor, and an extra button. Taylor could one-up the Sunbeam 91647 by making the max/min resettable without removing the battery...for example holding the max/min button in for say 5 seconds, then displaying a "R-E-S-E-T" sequence on the display, then resuming temperature readout.

I would probably buy one of these for each of the nine units in the apartment building I manage if it had a better mounting mechanism. As is, one tenant unwittingly knocked it over, and it was sitting at the back of the refrigerator shelf hidden by food for months, unused and forlorn! Yes the LCD does fog up in the freezer if it's relatively humid and/or you open the door a lot...just like any other thermometer. Target used to carry these...i'll bet they were discontinued due to these issues.

C'mon, Taylor, you got the hard part down...the great design...now just work on the mounting and marketing! If Sharper Image sold these, they'd be the "Amazing Super Chic Refrigerator/Freezer Monitor, with Universal Miracle Mount, Max/Min Food Guardian, and Backlit Display that Leverages your Existing Refrigerator Light!...Only $49.99!"

It's a good size and the digital readout works well. The suction cup does not work at all in our refrigerator. Stays stuck for maybe 1 minute before it falls. It would rate a 4 or 5 if the suction cup works, but I was generous with a 3 star rating. Don't buy it if you absolutely want the suction cup feature.

We bought two of these. They are a different color (ours are silver) but same brand and design.

Three problems:
1. It's mounted so it hangs off the side of the suction cup, putting a small amount of torque on the suction cup, which pulls it off the window after a few days. We tried cleaning the window and wetting it (didn't try the trick with vegetable oil). Really poor design. If they'd designed it so the display was BELOW or ABOVE the suction cup it would probably stay stuck.

2. Display is transparent and unreadable at night.

3. Both of these lasted about a year.

I think it was fairly accurate if you keep it out of the sunlight (like any thermometer)

I'm using this to monitor the temperature of our apartment. The apartment has the old fashion electric thermostats that don't have a temperature setting. The thermometer works great and the numbers are easy to read. I picked this because it was the smallest digital thermometer I can find--it sits up on top of the little electric thermostat perfectly. I don't use the suction cup, so I can't comment on that.

I bought several of these and put them in the fridge, freezer and in rooms around the house (to check the temperature there). I find that they do not stick on the walls of the fridge and freezer. I have to lay them down or put them on something. If this bothers you, don't get them.

I ordered three Taylor Digital Stick Thermometers (have two freezers & one refrig). First thing I did was to place them all in one freezer in very close proximity to each other. I was very impressed with the accuracy. While all three did not display the exact same readings, all three we within less than one degree of each other. In my opinion (from past experiences with freezer/refrig thermometers), that's pretty darn good! Ease of reading the displayed temp is excellent. My only beef (reason for the 4-star), is the suction cup would not stick in either freezer, although it worked fine in the refrig. Actually, I would have rated it a 4.5-star if that were possible.