The future of cold storage monitoring – smart temperature monitoring with IoT

Chilled and frozen rooms are the backbone of many industries — from the food industry and catering to the chemical industry and the pharmaceutical industry. In these sensitive environments, exceeding or falling below the temperature limit can have serious effects on product quality and safety.

Especially in food storage and processing, a stable refrigeration temperature is essential to prevent spoilage and health risks. In the pharmaceutical industry, temperature deviations can cause medicines to lose their effectiveness. Continuous monitoring and documentation of temperature are therefore not only legally required, but also a decisive factor in meeting quality standards.

In a world where efficiency and quality in the supply chain are decisive, temperature monitoring in cold stores plays a particularly central role. The challenges and risks companies face require advanced solutions to ensure the integrity of their products. This is where the innovative technology of our IoT gateway io-key^® comes in, ensuring precise and reliable monitoring.

Challenges and risks of cold-chain logistics

Cold-chain logistics is a complex and challenging task. Smooth operations depend on many factors that all have to work together perfectly. Cold-store monitoring is only one part of a larger process that starts at production and extends through delivery, storage and processing to final dispatch. In catering, food must be kept fresh to meet high standards. Chemical substances require specific storage conditions to ensure stability, while in the pharmaceutical industry compliance with storage conditions is vital. A break in the cold chain can not only lead to loss of quality, but also to major legal and financial consequences. Cold chains are essential for product safety and quality — but they are also susceptible to disruptions:

Temperature fluctuations: Open doors, technical defects or inadequate cooling systems can cause temperature fluctuations that impair the quality of stored products.

Manual monitoring: Many chilled and frozen rooms are not “smart”. They often do not have automated temperature recording or alarming, which increases the likelihood of errors and delays.

Complex documentation: Especially in insurance cases or audits, proving uninterrupted cold-chain monitoring is essential, but often difficult.

Key monitoring parameters: temperature and humidity

Temperature and humidity are critical parameters that must be monitored in cold rooms. Fluctuations can impair product quality or even lead to spoilage. Precise measurement and recording of these parameters are therefore crucial in order to detect and correct deviations in good time.

In addition to temperature, humidity also plays a decisive role in cold-store monitoring. Humidity that is too high can, for example, lead to mould growth, while humidity that is too low can dry out products. Especially in industries such as food and pharmaceuticals, such parameters can directly affect product safety and quality.

Another important aspect is door monitoring: if a door remains open for too long, temperature and humidity values can move outside the safe range — which not only increases energy consumption, but also jeopardises the stability of storage conditions.

IoT and the revolution of cold-chain logistics

The introduction of IoT has revolutionised cold-chain monitoring. Networked sensors such as autosen’s io-key^® can make cold stores smart. The io-key^® enables continuous real-time monitoring of temperature and humidity. These data are not only collected, but also analysed and can trigger an alarm immediately in the event of deviations.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has fundamentally changed the possibilities of temperature monitoring in cold stores. IoT devices such as the io-key^® enable continuous and automated monitoring of temperature, humidity and other relevant parameters.

The smart IoT solution for your cold-store monitoring

With a combination of our IoT gateway io-key^® and the humidity and temperature sensor AH002, you not only monitor humidity and temperature in your cold room reliably and automatically. The sensor data are transmitted quickly and securely via mobile communications (LTE-M or 2G) directly to the autosen.cloud or a cloud of your choice and displayed there automatically in clear, customisable dashboards. All of this happens without intervening in your IT infrastructure and without any programming effort — as simple, cost-effective and convenient as possible. In the cloud, you can easily and intuitively set up alarms and notifications via email and SMS. This way you are alerted quickly and reliably as soon as limit values are exceeded and can ensure the quality of your products at any time.

Add an IO-Link-capable inductive sensor and you can also integrate door monitoring easily, enabling alarms if doors are left open for too long and minimising energy losses.

With this complete solution, your cold store is not only fully monitored and your product quality and safety guaranteed. Proof of compliance with the cold chain for customers and insurers is also ensured. This is crucial in the event of damage for compensation claims or premium adjustments.

At a glance:

• Alarming in the event of temperature deviations: Immediate notification when the defined temperature window is left, to safeguard the cold chain and ensure product quality.
• Cold-chain documentation: Proof of compliance with the cold chain for customers and insurers, which can be crucial in the event of damage for compensation claims or premium adjustments.
• Door monitoring: With an inductive sensor, it can be monitored whether the cold-store door is properly closed. If the door remains open for too long, an alarm is triggered automatically. This not only protects the stored goods, but also saves energy costs.

Benefits of cold-room monitoring with the io-key^®