ProbeHarbor

What it is

ProbeHarbor is an open-source product for vulnerable spaces that swing with seasons, sun load, and door events: garages, workshops, attics, crawlspaces, and shops. It tracks temperature, humidity, wet/dry leak contacts, and related sensors, then turns those readings into live curves, freeze risk, flood alerts, and exportable history.

You keep the hardware you already trust — ESP32, Pico W, Arduino, MQTT, Home Assistant, Nest/Ecobee (Pro OAuth), or almost any device that can speak JSON. ProbeHarbor adds the hosted dashboard, household alerts, and history so you are not running another always-on box just to know when pipes or pads are at risk.

ProbeHarbor was called ThermalTrace until October 2026. The product, accounts, and features carried over; the domain moved from thermaltrace.dev to probeharbor.dev, and the GitHub repos, Android app, and Home Assistant integration were renamed to match.

The live product is at probeharbor.dev. This page is the portfolio write-up: what the system is made of, how the pieces fit, and where to go next.

• probeharbor.dev
• Interactive probe demo
• Product guides
• Pricing

How it works

Build → Connect → Get alerted. Wire a temperature probe (and optional leak puck), create a push device or pull feed in the dashboard, then POST JSON to a per-device ingest URL — or let ProbeHarbor pull an HTTPS feed on a schedule. Sensors auto-import on first contact.

The quickest path is the web flasher: plug an ESP32, ESP32-S3, or ESP32-C3 into a desktop running Chrome or Edge, flash prebuilt open-source firmware from the page, and send it your Wi‑Fi and device key — no Arduino IDE, nothing to compile. It reads up to four DS18B20 probes or a DHT22/DHT11, finds an SHT31, BME280, or AHT20 air sensor on I²C, and can report a leak contact, a door switch, and battery level. The dashboard shows each board’s firmware version and offers updates.

No probe yet? The public pipe-freeze forecast now takes a US ZIP and emails before freezing nights — the first freezing night of a cold spell and every night at 20°F or colder — with the protective steps and a link to the five-night forecast. Double opt-in and one-click unsubscribe; no hardware or account needed.

Set a freeze threshold and enable wet flood/leak contacts. Heat alerts sit beside freeze. Free and Member cover email plus Discord, Telegram, Slack, Teams, ntfy, and Pushover; Pro adds SMS, WhatsApp, browser push, HMAC webhooks, and official NWS freeze/cold alerts. A forecast-backed time-to-freeze clock shows hours until risk. “I’m on it” stops repeat freeze alerts until the space recovers. Feeds that stay silent are marked offline.

Alerts now say when things recover and close themselves when the condition clears, catch a probe stuck on one value, and warn when a device loses power. A freeze window explains why a night is at risk, rules can fire on any of several conditions, and a sensor can be replaced without losing its history. Before buying anything, the payload checker shows whether ProbeHarbor will understand a sensor’s JSON, and cold-snap replay runs your rules against a past cold spell.

Core product components

Web app & ingest edge — Astro 6 on Cloudflare Workers serves the marketing site, authenticated dashboard, and ingest APIs close to visitors. Live job and ingest health is published on the product’s system-status page rather than a marketing uptime claim.

Dashboard Overview — Simple or Insights mode: 7-day probe curves, freeze hours and degree-hours, indoor−outdoor ΔT, probe spread, condensation risk, feed health, plus cards for doors, power, motion, battery/RSSI, and air quality.

Devices & feeds — Push devices with API keys, pull HTTPS JSON feeds, MQTT bridge so Mosquitto can stay on the LAN, Home Assistant recipes, and Nest/Ecobee thermostat hooks (Pro) for outdoor/context readings.

Alerts & evidence — Threshold freeze and automatic flood/leak alerts on every plan. Member adds outdoor forecast warnings; Pro adds NWS alerts, richer channels, Grafana/Prometheus metrics keys, and a printable claims evidence pack with matching readings and alert CSVs for a date range you choose.

Households & portfolios — Invite family (including read-only viewers), publish a free family live share link, and scale to Portfolio / property-manager logins for multi-unit sites.

Plans — Free forever with 7-day history; Member ($4/mo), Pro ($10/mo), and Portfolio (~$29/mo) unlock longer retention, CSV export (Member+), and higher alert/automation ceilings. See pricing for current amounts; annual billing is discounted versus monthly.

• About / start here
• Developer docs
• Pipe freeze forecast
• Source on GitHub

Hardware & firmware

ProbeHarbor does not lock you into a proprietary puck. Sample sketches and recipes live in the product repo under sketches/ and in the guides: ESP32 freeze kits with waterproof DS18B20, Raspberry Pi Pico W, Arduino Ethernet, STM32 Zephyr, CH32V RISC-V, Teensy, PIC18, AVR assembly, and cellular (Particle Boron) samples.

Typical path: flash the firmware from the browser (or a personalized sketch), POST so sensors auto-import, optionally add OTA / QR stickers for field installs. Accessories — claim puck, leak puck, door puck, mounts — are catalogued separately from companion apps.

• Flash from the browserprobeharbor.dev/flash
• Adding devices guide
• Hardware accessories
• Claim puck

Companion apps

Companion clients sign into your ProbeHarbor account. They do not measure temperature — ESP/Arduino probes (or HTTPS feeds) push readings; apps display them, history, alerts, devices, and household tools.

Android (early access) — Native phone/tablet companion for live probes, history, freeze/flood alerts, devices, MFA, and household tools while Google Play review finishes.

iOS — A native SwiftUI client with the same screens as Android: live sensors and time to freeze, history with a claims pack to share with an adjuster, the alerts inbox with acknowledge and snooze, devices, households, and share links. Push alerts carry an Acknowledge action.

ProbeHarbor Desktop — Native Windows, macOS, and Linux dashboard for the full account experience at a desk.

Bay Buddy — Glanceable freeze and flood “mood” for one garage, workshop, or cabin space on a second monitor.

Progressive Web App — Install from Chrome, Edge, or Safari Add to Home Screen for a phone-friendly client with the same account, no store wait. Pro can enable browser push from Dashboard → Alerts.

• Apps catalogprobeharbor.dev/apps
• Android (GitHub)
• iOS (GitHub)
• Desktop (GitHub)
• Bay Buddy (GitHub)

Integrations

Home Assistant (HACS) for local notify beside ProbeHarbor channels. Matter exposes share-link sensors to Apple Home, Google Home, Alexa, and SmartThings. Node-RED, Influx/Telegraf, and Pro webhooks (IFTTT, n8n, Grafana) cover the rest of a homelab. A public pipe-freeze forecast and opt-in freeze map can be embedded on another site.

• Integrations on this site
• Pipe freeze forecast
• Guides on probeharbor.dev
• Developer docs

Related open-source stack

ProbeHarbor grew out of earlier garage-temperature work on this domain. The product repo is the Astro app at probeharbor.dev. Older pieces still useful as references: the FastAPI + Redis JSON relay, and the Arduino network JSON temperature sketch with dual probes.

• probeharbor
• fast-api-relay
• arduino-network-json-temperature-sever
• garage-temp (earlier front end)

Outcome

A live product at probeharbor.dev. Handy reference if you need IoT dashboards, alert routing, or a clear path from sensor to phone without standing up your own always-on box.