Reliance Controls THP217 Automatic Phone-Out Freeze Monitor

I found this monitor to be a very cost effective soltuion to give you peace of mind when you are away from home. It is simple to set up and has a test feature so you know you have it set properly. So far it has worked perfectly everytime I have tested it. It has battery backup if the power goes out as that is often the cause of the furnace failure as well. Fortunately, I haven't needed it in a real situation but I am sure it will work well. I have also been asked to "babysit" other peoples homes while they are on vacation. I just set this up on their phone line and I don't need to be constantly worrying that their furnace may have gone out between visual inspections. The only drawback is that you must have an active landline, so for those that use their cell phones as their home phone, I don't know if or how you could set it up to work.

This device gives great peace of mind. Once installed, it will call out to distant phone numbers when temperature inside the house drops below a preset level. Programming is a bit tricky, but the instructions are complete.

I bought this because my insurer (homeowners) required it. It is as advertised and was easy to install. I gave it only 3 stars, however, because it really hasn't been tested. The temperature in my house did not fall to a dangerous low. So it remains untried.

Set up unit per instructions. Let it aclimate several hours. 120v plug and telephone plug are next to exterior door. Set unit outside at 35* on a cement block, Let it sit an hour and it did not call, beep or do anything. I went through the instructions again to make sure it is armed.Called tech support, waited 40 minutes on hold. Someone finally answered and said that 35* was too cold for the unit to operate. I explained how I had it at 68* for 2 hours, then moved it into cold to simulate a drop in temperature. Tech claimed it only works if it's a slow drop in temp...Really???? So, if you loose heat and the temp drops too quick you're out of luck? Did not even answer the question when I asked if it's possible I might have a defective unit. He said the thermostatic switch inside can't possibly malfunction. Ok????Returning item and buying something that works when I test it.

I bought this last winter when I was having trouble with my furnace not working after a power outage. I set it up to call me while I was on vacation and just left it set up. Recently the low battery light started blinking and I ignored it, as there is no freeze danger now. After blinking for a few days, the phone system quit working. By process of elimination I discovered that this unit had killed my phone service. Once unplugged the phone was fine, but it was an unexpected problem.Otherwise, no issues after 6 months.

This does exactly what it claims to do. We use it in our vacation house. Last year we had not yet installed the central heating and it called us every time the internal temp dropped below 42 deg F so we could go out (fortunately not far from our full-time house) and start up the wood stove. It's easy to set up and as long as you have a power supply seem dependable.

I bought this for my parents who own a cottage that is occupied in the summer, but only occasionally during the fall before being fully closed for the winter/spring. We lost a toilet last fall when the furnace died while no one was there, so I thought a device like this would be useful. However, after being in place for the summer and one fall, there are a number of issues with this device:- the 9V back-up battery drained in less than one season- an icon on the screen indicated that the low-temp alarm had gone off during a prolonged power-outage, but no phone calls had been successfully made- the power went out again but I didn't know about it. When I went up the place was dark, the device was dead, and there was ice in the toilet- you cannot adjust the length of time that the alarm sounds over the phone lines, so if you rely on an answering machine you may not get the "message"- the above may be the reason why the device could never successfully dial my cell phone, but despite the two power failures my parents were never successfully notified either with their landline/answering machine combo- the "message" is simply an alarm tone, not a spoken message indicating what is wrong- the user interface is very poor and the instructions to program it are overly long and involve many steps, this is annoying because it could be better- after the first instance when I was notified that the alarm had gone off, there was no indication in the instructions about how to acknowledge & clear that noticeThe end result is that we will be buying a different variety of freeze alarm. Secure protection would be worth twice the price.

This new unit has one drawback that must be made clear to anyone who is considering this choice: if the power goes out, it will not try to call you. Earlier versions, like the THP 201 or 202, did. Leaving out this feature is a drawback, since most of the time, if you are away and you lose power, you will want to know. Ironically, for many households that have dropped their old land lines and switched to a cable modem line, the call out feature would not work in any case, since the phone requires power to place a call, and goes out with the modem in an outage. But for reliable monitoring, one can switch back to a land line for $22 a month, and an auto-dialer that reports an outage as well as low temperatures. If you want to keep your cable modem phone, this is better than nothing, though keep in mind that if you do lose power, this will not be able to let you know.