this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
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Accurate/smart oil sensor? (discuss.tchncs.de)
submitted 9 months ago by Balakirev@discuss.tchncs.de to c/homeassistant@lemmy.world
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We heat our house with oil (grumble grumble grumble) but our float sensor is not a very accurate measure and it's out of the way to actually see. Has anyone come across a sensor that works with HA and has been reliable? Bonus points for something that still has an "analog" view in case of problem

I've seen some sensors on Amazon but I'm skeptical of anything through there.

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[โ€“] thehatfox@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I also have an oil boiler, and a tank in the garden. The tank was fitting with an Apollo Ultrasonic oil level sensor, which sends a signal to base station with a very basic LCD display in the house via 433Mhz radio.

I use an RTL-SDR USB radio dongle, a cheap 433MHz antenna and the rtl_433 software to monitor the signals from the ultrasonic sensor, which transits roughly once an hour. The level measurement transmitted is a fairly accurate centimetre value (I compared it with manual measurements with a dip stick for a few months).

The base station only showed a vague level indication with 10 bars, but now I have more a more precise smart display of the tank level, without any extra modification to the tank system.

[โ€“] Balakirev@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 9 months ago

I'm starting to wonder if there are white label ultrasonic sensors out there since this looks like the Beckett. It also looks like this won't support 120 AC. I'm in the USA and our namby pamby grid can't handle it.