Tragic day for my snakes.

[spyderrobotics]

With a Herpstat model that includes the safety relay it has a relay inline with the solid state components. You enable the safety relay in the menu which can tie it into your settable High / Low temp alarms. So when your alarms are breached it will beep but will also trigger the relay cutting power to all outputs on the thermostat. This is what protects your against a runaway heating situation.

Those models would be the Intro+, Herpstat 1, Herpstat 2, Herpstat 4, Herpstat 6.

There are devices out there that do the text/email alerts. We've investigated that idea several times but unfortunately the explosion of "Internet of Things" products out there has also exploded with exploits and security holes. So now you not only have to worry about a hardware failure but also internet security, router configs, and so forth. Email alerts are like finding out your home is on fire. Its good to know but its better to put the effort into preventing the fire in the first place.

Keep in mind a mechanical relay only thermostat has a limited contact life with the biggest problem being when the contacts are released there is a spark that wears on the contacts. One of the reasons we have some special sauce in our Herpstat HP to minimize that. Not to mention if you are using it for regular temperature control of an enclosure the relay clicking will drive you mad.

Dion Brewington
Owner, Spyder Robotics

from what I have seen I am not sure if they do detect the type of failure I had. Plus their alarm is a local one, meaning either visual or near by audio based one. I travel enough for long enough periods of time, that having a text/email alert when a relay failure is detected is needed.

The other thing I am doing is building a 12 zone system, one for every single snake so I can manage each animal individually. Granted I see where thats a bit overkill, but I would rather do this once the way I want it, than halfway do it and wish i did more later.

So when all said and done the value perspective of the herpstats is great, the key features I am after, multi zone and text/email alerts and remote control, there simply is nothing that does it. to get the zone coverage I am looking at close to $1,000, without the other features.