YoLink Smart X3 Version Outdoor Temperature Data Logger with Probe, Thermometer, 1/4 Mile Range, 5+ Years Battery Life, Emails, Text, App Alerts, Alexa, IFTTT. Pool, Hot Tub, Fish Tank. Hub Required!

Getting reliable and accurate pool water temperature seems easy but most thermometers, especially digital ones are not very accurate or not calibrated properly from factory. In an effort to ensure the most accurate readings I’ve used multiple analog (alcohol and even mercury) thermometers with varying degrees of success. Getting all thermometers to agree seems impossible while most of the good ones do come very close to each other. Now using analog ones is great since they never need calibration, however they are not practical as you have to go to them rather than get remote readings, and of course there is no historical data. In my case I wanted accurate remote readings often and nothing floating around in the pool, so I took advantage of a water pit in the pool concrete deck, and installed multiple temperature sensors in the same spot and begun testing and gathering temperature data. Before getting the YoLink LoRa Temperature Sensor YS8014 X3 I had both several Aqara and YoLink YS8004 sensors. I had some connectivity issues with the other brands due to the “underground” location, however all the YoLink sensors connected perfectly and quickly, so I narrowed down my options to YoLink. While all YoLink sensors seemed to work very well, I was curious to see how much better the new YS8014 X3 sensor was and how it compared to the others. While the end results proved that all sensors were very close to each other, I really liked that the new YS8014 X3 allows for more samples more often, as low as 1 minute and as long as 1h. Interestingly 1h is the norm with most such sensors. The YS8014 X3 also has a convenient LCD display that will also automatically turn off at your choice timeout to save batter life. Just like the other YoLink temperature sensors the YS8014 X3 uses easily replaceable batteries but now there is a 2y and 5y battery option at purchase, so more flexibility and longer battery life overall. It also saves temperature data internally in case the hub us off-line then sends it once it re-connects so no data is lost! I will end up keeping the YoLink YS8014 X3 sensor in the pool water pit and move the others to my kitchen refrigerator and garage fridge, to keep an eye on them and get alerts should the cooling stop. I lost a full fridge of items a while ago due to a failure of the garage fridge, and at the time I had no sensor to monitor the inside as all I tried could not communicate from inside the fridge, except YoLink! Anyway, I am very pleased with ALL the YoLInk temperature sensors and would certainly recommend them for almost any need given the flexibility features, great support services and long range LoRa technology.

UPDATE ... I found a mounting hole on the back of the device! The hole was obscured by a metal plate with a stick pad on it. The metal plate is magnetic. So instead of there being no reasonable option for mounting, there are actually two! On that basis Im changing my review to 5 stars. Still a very trusted brand with me! :) I have many YoLink devices and I'm a huge fan of the brand. That said, this is the first device I've purchased that I'm disappointed with. The reason? It's an outdoors thermometer that has no means for hanging the device up. Instead of a mounting hole or a little loop of cord, they went with a sticky pad. Those don't work on brick ... in fact those don't work on many outdoors surfaces ... and even if they did, one doesn't always want to mount something in that way. The older model was much better designed in this regard. Hopefully this feedback gets to the YoLink team.

Best I could find but not perfect. Would be better to have faster app temperature update intervals (5 minutes would be fine instead of 30). Or at least it should update when I'm looking at the app. A backlight on it would be nice too, activated for 10 seconds by a motion sensor. Also would be better if the device itself had a beep of some kind so I know alert temperatures have been reached. I don't want the yolink siren or another echo device for the alarm. The alert phone notifications work (even with phone asleep) but what if my phone is muted or battery dies, or I'm asleep and my phone is in another room? Also on Alexa it only shows Celsius, no option for Farenheit. Overall the device works well enough and as intended, just hoped for more. I don't mind changing the battery every 6 months or so. No need for 5 year battery.

We have used this with the accompanying hot to monitor and alert us to changes in our hot tub temp. Works great and doesn't rely on your wifi as it maintains its own network with the hub. The one caveat is to be careful not to allow water to accumulate around the data logger piece. The case is not quite watertight (and I don't think it claims to be - our bad). We had it mounted to the outside of the hot tub in a small dry bag of the type you use to protect your phone while on the water, but water got in and came into prolonged contact with the unit, which seeped into the logger's case and eventually caused the unit to fail. For this new one we've mounted a true outdoor water-tight electrical box and put it in that, so we don't expect any issues. Other than that one caution, this is a great little system!

I have a number of other Yolink sensors including remote probe types that perform well. However this one does not. The display is about a degree off and does not agree with the graph temperature. The app display sometimes does not agree with either of them and sometimes doesn't update for up to half an hour. The graph does update every 5 minutes minutes as programmed. My experience is good luck trying to figure out what the actual temperature is. Expected better from this. Update After more checking on the display accuracy I found it within a few tenths of my reference thermometer. I can't say which one may be the most accurate so raising it a star as that was my error. It is still erratic on the present reading as sometimes it will say 11 (or other number beyond 5) minutes ago. It is set for 5 minutes and when you look back later every graph reading is 5 minutes apart. My experience continues that the present reading could be some time ago and not the 5 minutes (or less) ago it should be.