So our #MobileHQGU gets a lot of blacktop miles these days, but whenever possible it still gets a pounding off-road and has for a number of years. If a Nissan Patrol could talk it’d have a few stories to tell around the campfire that’s for sure.
In the last few weeks we have had a couple of electrical gremlins with the old bus – relative minor issues that were fixed with a couple of new pieces of cable and refreshed fuse holders. Unfortunately though, not before a trip with my 5 year old first born Victoria was cut short (she couldn’t stand the thought of not having fresh bacon to have the following morning – bless her heart).
Unfortunately the issues were all linked back to the cabling that provides power down the passenger side of the pootrol to two 12v plugs; one of which provides power to our Dometic Waeco CFX65w fridge. Now to anyone who has travelled by fourby, you will agree that once you’ve been used to ducking into a cool fridge for a drink or for some lunch, you absolutely cannot be without it. Sliding out on our custom built Ashwood Timber drawer system, it provides my two young daughters with cold juice and fruit and mum and dad a refreshing beverage at the end of a long day.
Unfortunately the old “modified-vehicle-with-issues” bit rang true and we didn’t just have one failure, but three of them over a 2 week period. During this time I was out and about with the family, travelling about a thousand kilometres in normal daily driving and about double that on and off-road filming with The Offroad Adventure Show. You could understand why I was a little nervous about something going wrong again. The risks were as broad as the rig catching fire, through to losing a fridge full of perishable products while I wasn’t looking.
Enter our Dometic Waeco fridge and its awesome CFX WiFi App. As soon as I started having these issues I remembered that our unit comes with an app that I can open on my phone and monitor the fridge live! As boring as it sounds, being able to check (where I was in range of the vehicle) the temperature in the fridge at any time was just so comforting. Further to this, you can set alarms through your app that will notify you of any variance in temperature. So if you have a failure like I had and the temperature dropped (in my case I have set a 3 degree variance) you will be notified – allowing you to investigate the issue before it’s too late.
It’s funny because you try to get away from technology when you go off-road – it’s one of the most attractive things about our hobby. In this case, a smart bit of technology really added massive value for me and I couldn’t be more thankful that it was available to me when I needed it.
Need a new fridge? I suggested you check out Dometic Waeco’s range with the WiFi app – one less thing hanging off your windscreen or mounted somewhere means one less bit of wiring and extra weight – not many people travel without a phone anyway.
It just makes sense!!
Happy Touring
Kal
