Quote Originally Posted by Neal View Post
The only thermostats I would use are Herpstat which is my first choice, then Vivarium Electronics. Helix's are good too but I've never used them.

Herpstats have a fail safe, that if something goes wrong it kills the power. These cheaper thermostats Zilla, jumpstart etc.. don't have that. So when it fails, it gets blasted wide open. This is why I never recommend those thermostats because once you factor in the cost of the snake it's not really worth it to cut cost on a thermostat. Sorry this happened to you.
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.


Separate of that, phase 1 of recovery is complete. I have a digital thermometer on every tub, replaced ALL heat tape since some warped from over heat, and replaced the thermostat with a single zone to 'get by' until I complete my replacement system. I have all the parts for the replacement system, I just need to start building it out and writing code.