Please read the OP carefully. I do NOT want an outdoor sensor that sends the temp to an indoor base. Ideally what I want is a digital clock/thermometer combo that can stay in an unheated garage and be readable from anywhere in the garage. I am not interested in any analog readouts. I know LCDs won’t work below freezing so I am probably looking for an LED device of some sort.
Does such a thing exist? I cannot wade thru the morass of indoor/outdoor weather stations which flood any google search I try.
I must add that I have an Oregon Scientific weather sensor in my garage which functions down to -22F and it has an LCD on it (maybe 1/2 in height) so I am baffled why I keep hearing that LCDs won’t work below freezing.
Some of the issue may be the batteries. Standard alkalines don’t work well in cold temperatures; you need the more expensive lithium versions.
I’ve got both the sensors and the base station of a greenhouse thermometer in an unheated packing shed (sensors are in the coolers); these work in cold weather as long as they’ve got the right batteries, and the base station has a clock. It doesn’t have a large enough display for you, though, I don’t think.
You missed the part where I want the physical readout to appear in the garage, not be read indoors by an outdoor sensor. I did the same search as you and all are sensors that send readings indoors.
I searched for ‘thermometer “LED display”’ and found this - it’s not really designed for outdoor use but at least it’s a digital thermometer with a wired sensor and LED display, and operating temperature down to 14F. Is that cold enough or do you expect the garage to get colder than that?
Certainly.
Dozens of businesses around here have outdoor signs that give the time (often with temperature, too). Perhaps bigger & more expensive than you want to pay, but certainly available.
Again, I think this is intended to be displayed indoors in a warm environment and reports what is at the end of the probe. I want the entire thing to be able to be in the cold environment.
This is either going to be a custom design (I could do it for you), or extremely expensive (like for a time-and-temperature display on a bank, as mentioned above).
You are probably the only person in the world who wants one.
If you can, industrial displays from Red Lion or Newport or whoever have all sizes of digital displays, if a purchased thermometer display is too small it isn’t too hard to run the signal wires to a stand-alone display.