Is night time temperature drop necessary?

I am controlling my temps with an Inkbird ITC 306 wifi.
When it works, it works good.
But it has been having errors of unknown origins almost every week.
And it makes me angry every time because this has happend from the beginning when the device was new so it can't be broken I think. And it happens with both my inkbirds so I really don't know whats wrong it just says error and the device shuts off.
To get it back up again I pull the plug and put it in again, works fine after for a while till the new error comes.

I could tolerate this for a while since I was at home most of the time and could act quickly to switch it on again.
But with my new enclosure build I don't want to use these devices anymore since they are unreliable.

Actuall problem I have now , is that I want to have a device with wifi function because I want to be able to control everything when I am not there. BUT I have not found a controller with a night time drop function AND wifi (except inkbird) .
Not sure what to do now.

Ball pythons don't need a night time temperature drop, and you have to get out of that mindset of what YOU want. You have an unreliable thermostat controlling the heating device on your snake's enclosure right now, and haven't replaced it because you can't find what you want. If your thermostat isn't working correctly and is randomly shutting off and not controlling your temperatures you need to, at a minimum, replace it with something more reliable even if it's only a temporary fix until you can find what you want. The more important issue, above you not finding something that has the features you want, is your snake doesn't have reliable equipment controlling it's environment.

On a side note, I believe that Inkbird has a 1-year warranty. Not sure how long you've had that Inkbird, but if less than a year I would see if you could make a claim to get it replaced.

With that said, you still need a working thermostat until you get the Inkbird replaced (if that's what they do).

I've never had a need to adjust my tstats from afar. I haven't adjusted them in years. If it's a good tstat it should be fine all on its own.

I do have a wifi home tstat that I can drop or raise the room temp if needed but that's not a real concern either being the snake room is heated by an oil filled heater on a tstat.

I do also have some wifi thermometers I keep in different parts of the house that lets me track temp and humidity throughout the house. One is in the snake room and I can have alarms to let me know it's warmer or cooler than I want.

I never touch my thermostats. My hot spots stay the same. If there's any changes, it's the ambient room temp will drop a bit because the room is cooler in the winter.

Maybe look into a herpistat Spyder? That may have the specifics you want.

I'm hoping your new build comes up soon because it seems like there's been a lot going on with the current setup. This is set up on the habitat that your snake scarred itself on, correct? This is a heating issue that may have caused your snake to injure itself looking for heat if the habitat was too cold.

A broken tstat is dangerous. You can run the risk of illness, death or fire when they're not working as intended.

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Originally Posted by Hugsplox

Ball pythons don't need a night time temperature drop, and you have to get out of that mindset of what YOU want. You have an unreliable thermostat controlling the heating device on your snake's enclosure right now, and haven't replaced it because you can't find what you want. If your thermostat isn't working correctly and is randomly shutting off and not controlling your temperatures you need to, at a minimum, replace it with something more reliable even if it's only a temporary fix until you can find what you want. The more important issue, above you not finding something that has the features you want, is your snake doesn't have reliable equipment controlling it's environment.

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I haven't replaced it because I don't have the money. And they were brand new.
This hasn't been an issue for my snake since I was always home to fix it immediately so that the temperature didn't even drop.
But in the future I won't be home as often so I need something else. And the wifi is for my snake not for me.
If I can't see what the temps are from afar I can't do anything.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Armiyana

I never touch my thermostats. My hot spots stay the same. If there's any changes, it's the ambient room temp will drop a bit because the room is cooler in the winter.

Maybe look into a herpistat Spyder? That may have the specifics you want.

I'm hoping your new build comes up soon because it seems like there's been a lot going on with the current setup. This is set up on the habitat that your snake scarred itself on, correct? This is a heating issue that may have caused your snake to injure itself looking for heat if the habitat was too cold.

A broken tstat is dangerous. You can run the risk of illness, death or fire when they're not working as intended.

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I can say for sure it's not too cold. He's not constantly in his warm hide. And it did not drop in temperature because I fixed it everytime the error ocured. But it's annoying and not doable anymore.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Charles8088

On a side note, I believe that Inkbird has a 1-year warranty. Not sure how long you've had that Inkbird, but if less than a year I would see if you could make a claim to get it replaced.

With that said, you still need a working thermostat until you get the Inkbird replaced (if that's what they do).

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I would need to send it back to china for that. And since it happens on both my devices even when they were brand new, I can't imagine they're broken. But I also have no idea how to fix the error since there is no error code and the company doesn't provide any error explanation as well.

Honestly, a heat mat on a dimmer is far better than a malfunctioning T-stat. But I'd get a Herpstat ASAP.

A have a room full of Herpstats, with about 200 animals peak season, and never thought I needed remote control of them -- and I do have remote access to my aquariums, and home security system, because these things do sometimes need remote access. Reptile thermostats do not.

For them both to be doing the exact same problem leads me to believe either a problem with that particular model or something happened that damaged them, like a surge and they haven't been the same since. I have been using inkbird for a very long time and never had any errors that were the fault of the thermostat. I have never done the wifi ones though. I really don't see the point in a wifi thermostat to check from afar because most of the time any problems are going to come from probe becoming displaced or the thing break all together - which wifi is not going to help alert you to well anyways.

I'd just get two cheapy normal inkbirds without all the bells and whistles ASAP before your snakes get sick from malfunctions and then if you want to try and get some other fancy wifi thing later when you have more money you can.