Illustrative dataEach client sees its own rooms
You watch every room and site on one screen. TemperatureWise can also give each client a view of just the rooms that hold its product.
TemperatureWise for cold storage and 3PL
Temperature monitoring for cold storage and 3PL warehouses
Know a freezer is failing while there is still time to move the stock. At one Philadelphia distribution center, TemperatureWise flagged a failing freezer 27 days before the repair, with $450,000 of product inside.
- 3PL warehouses
- Food distribution centers
- Brands with their own DC
- Parked reefers used as storage
27 daysof warning before a $450,000 freezer repair
27 daysof warning before a $450,000 freezer repairPhiladelphia distribution center, 2025
$0 loston a $150,000 freezer, alerted 53 hours before its peakPhiladelphia, April 2025
5 h 45 minfrom the alert to the safety line on a parked reeferMississauga, December 2025
What you get
Four things TemperatureWise does for a cold store
Illustrative data
It sees a failing freezer days or weeks early
The coldest reading of each day creeps up before a room fails. TemperatureWise watches that trend and points at the likely cause, such as the coil or a refrigerant leak.
One gateway covers the building, even in a power cut
LoRa radio passes through freezer panels and steel, so nothing is drilled and nothing depends on plant Wi-Fi. With cellular and battery backup it keeps reporting when the power goes.
How one gateway covers a multi-room site
Illustrative dataAlerts climb until someone answers
Email first, then a text, then a phone call, with a delay you choose between steps. Each sensor can reach up to three people by text or call.
Where it goes wrong
Five ways a cold store loses temperature
Three show up in the failure data. Two come from people who run cold rooms, in their own words.
From the data
Caught 53 hours before the peak in Philadelphia, April 2025
A failed defrost or a busy dock door ices the coil
Wet air from the dock freezes onto the cooling coil, and a failed defrost leaves it there. Air stops moving through the coil, and each day ends a little warmer.
- How fast
- 2 to 5 days
- What the log shows
- The coldest point of each day steps up
- How to tell
- Humidity rises before the temperature does
In their words
"I'm currently on the overnight rotation and one of my job duties is to ensure the refrigeration system is up and running properly by monitoring the temps."
When a person is the monitoring, a failure waits for the next round
Rounds happen every few hours, and not at all when nobody is on site. A Sacramento freezer failed over a long weekend with nobody there, and $125,000 of stock was lost.
- The gap
- Hours between rounds, days over a weekend
- TemperatureWise
- A reading every 15 minutes, 96 a day
- Then
- Email, text, then a call until someone answers
From the data
Caught 27 days before the first repair in Philadelphia, June 2025
A slow refrigerant leak takes weeks to show
Each week there is a little less refrigerant to carry heat out. The room runs longer, and its coldest point of the day creeps up and does not come back.
- How fast
- 1 to 8 weeks
- What the log shows
- The daily low creeps up
- How to tell
- Run times grow too. A technician confirms with pressures
In their words
"Very old refrigerated (<38°F [3°C]) warehouse, not particularly well insulated, with an 'interesting' system retrofitted ca. 2010."
An old building with a patched system has little margin on a hot day
Worn insulation lets more heat in, and a system added years later may have little capacity to spare. The room warms with the afternoon heat and takes longer to recover after each load.
- How fast
- Every hot afternoon
- What the log shows
- The room warms and cools with the outdoor heat
- TemperatureWise
- Adds sensors without touching the old system
From the data
Caught 5 h 45 min before the safety line in Mississauga, December 2025
A reefer parked as storage can stop and not restart
A parked reefer on an automatic stop-start cycle can fail to restart. In Mississauga one stopped at noon on 26 December, and a weak battery kept it from starting again. Up to $125,000 of stock was inside.
- How fast
- Hours
- What the log shows
- A straight climb once cooling stops
- How to tell
- No restart after a normal engine-off period
Real failures, real numbers
One freezer failed twice in 2025, and TemperatureWise caught it both times
The June failure, step by step
- TemperatureWise alerts the team to a developing problem. The room can still reach about 6.8°F (-14°C).
- TemperatureWise's AI diagnoses a refrigerant leak and alerts the team.
- First repair. One of the two systems is back.
- $450,000 of stock moved to a temporary reefer. Final repair.
- Stable again near the -0.4°F (-18°C) target.
"Without your timely interference, things could have gone sideways. It turned out to be a great save."
All three case studies are at the end of the page.
Pricing and payback
A three-room cold store costs $2,500 up front and $2,300 a year
Three large rooms, three sensors each
| Item | Once | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| 9 LoRa sensors at $200 | $1,800 | |
| Gateway for a larger site | $450 | |
| Cellular connection | $125 | $50 |
| Battery backup | $125 | |
| Monitoring, 9 sensors at $250 | $2,250 | |
| Total | $2,500 | $2,300 |
No extra charge for the dashboard, alerts, reporting or setup. Price list of 1 September 2026.
One caught failure is worth 54 to 196 times the yearly fee
The $125,000 one Sacramento freezer lost over a long weekend would have paid for 54 years of monitoring.
Multiple = the stock in the room ÷ the $2,300 yearly fee. The one-time $2,500 is left out, as on the TemperatureWise calculator. Losses and stock values are from the published case studies.
Want a detailed calculation for your own site? The full calculator on the TemperatureWise page takes your rooms, sensors and connection.
Open the full calculatorHow it works
Three steps, nothing drilled, no shutdown
We plan it from your floor plan
TemperatureWise marks where each sensor and the gateway go before anything ships.
You place the sensors and plug in the gateway
Magnet, adhesive pad or one screw. The gateway goes into an ordinary socket.
It learns each room in the first week
TemperatureWise learns each room's defrost pattern and sets alerts around it, so a normal defrost is not an alarm.
LoRa radio through walls and freezer panels. Nothing drilled.
Every 15 minutesReadings kept indefinitely
Rated to -40°F (-40°C)Battery lasts 5 to 8 years
Temperature and humidityFrom one sensor
The rules
The record US and Canadian rules ask a cold store to keep
US · 21 CFR 117.206
A warehouse holding packaged food that needs refrigeration monitors its temperature and keeps records. The records are reviewed within 7 working days.
Read 21 CFR 117.206US · 21 CFR 1.908
The loader checks that a refrigerated trailer was properly pre-cooled, where that is needed.
Read 21 CFR 1.908Canada · CFIA
Licensing a cold store is voluntary unless the food is headed for export. A licensed store keeps a written preventive control plan.
Read CFIA's guidance on cold storagesTemperatureWise produces the record. The review and sign-off stay with you.
Common questions
How do you monitor cold storage temperature remotely?
With a battery sensor in each room and one gateway on site that sends the readings to your phone and a web dashboard. TemperatureWise uses LoRa radio, which passes through insulated freezer panels, so nothing is drilled.
How many temperature sensors does a cold storage room need?
One for a small walk-in, two for a mid-sized one and three for a large one. Large means about 2,000 sq ft (186 m²) or more. That is a starting point: TemperatureWise sizes the number from your floor plan.
How much does cold storage temperature monitoring cost?
About $2,500 up front and $2,300 a year for a site with three large rooms on TemperatureWise, with cellular and battery backup included.
Can TemperatureWise monitor a reefer trailer parked at a dock?
Yes. At a Mississauga production site, a parked reefer stopped cooling at noon on 26 December 2025. A TemperatureWise sensor alerted the team at 4 PM, at 10.9°F (-11.7°C).
Does TemperatureWise work with ammonia refrigeration systems?
Yes. TemperatureWise monitors the rooms an ammonia system cools. The mechanical health of the ammonia plant, and its gas detection, are not covered.
Proof
Case studies at a glance
- Philadelphia · April 2025$150,000freezer, 53 hours of warningA failed defrost timer, fixed in one visit. $0 lost.Read the case study
- Philadelphia · June to August 2025$450,000freezer, 27 days of warningTime to find old parts and move the stock to a reefer first.Read the case study
- Mississauga · December 2025$125,000reefer, 5 h 45 min of warningStopped and did not restart. Stock value estimated.Read the case study
See what your coldest room has been doing
Send us 30 days of readings from one room, or let us put a sensor in it. We will show you what it was doing before anyone noticed. No purchase needed.