What does a refrigeration alarm monitoring centre do?
An alarm monitoring centre receives alarms from refrigeration systems day and night and makes sure someone acts on them. The signal usually comes from the system’s controller or a temperature probe once a limit has been crossed. An operator then works down a call list until someone answers, and sends a technician out if needed.
Most refrigeration contractors run their own out-of-hours cover, and some businesses pay a staffed monitoring centre to receive their alarms. Both respond once the alarm has gone off. By the time a temperature alarm fires, the fault is already there and the stock is warming up. That is why so many of them end in an emergency call-out at night or over the weekend.
Is Maci a staffed alarm monitoring centre?
No. Maci Intelligence is automated, round-the-clock monitoring of refrigeration systems with alarms and escalation. Nobody at Maci sits by a phone working through your call list. Maci does the job of a monitoring centre: it watches the systems, raises the alarm and passes it on if nobody responds. Your own staff and your refrigeration contractor are the ones who act on it.
What sets it apart is what gets watched. Maci Intelligence measures current, pressure and temperature at several points on the system every minute, and its AI learns how each system normally behaves. When the compressor, the evaporator or the refrigerant starts behaving differently, the warning typically comes 3 to 6 weeks before a breakdown, so the fault can be fixed on a planned daytime visit. More on the measurements under refrigeration monitoring and the sensors.
How does a Maci alarm work, from first deviation to acknowledgement?
The sensors measure every minute
Current, pressure and temperature are sent to Maci encrypted, over a wired network or a small LTE modem.
The AI spots the deviation
Maci compares the readings with the system’s own normal behaviour and works out what is wrong, how serious it is and how long the system is likely to last.
The alarm goes out
The first person on the list gets it in the app, by email and by SMS if they have turned SMS on. Every alarm has a level: critical, warning or info.
Someone acknowledges it
Whoever takes the alarm acknowledges it in the app. Everyone else on the list can see it is being handled, and it goes no further.
No response: the next person is told
If nobody acknowledges it within the time you have set, the alarm moves on to the next person on the list.
The alarm is closed with a note
For every alarm Maci keeps who it went to and how, who took it and how it was closed, with the technician’s note.
What the alarms look like in the app, and how you set levels and recipients, is on the page about alerts in Maci Intelligence.
What happens if nobody responds to a refrigeration alarm?
It moves on. You set an order of recipients for each system, each site or the whole organisation, and choose how long an alarm may go unacknowledged before the next person hears about it. In the examples on this site that time is 2 hours.
Escalation means an alarm is never left sitting because the only person who gets it is off shift or has not looked at their phone. The more critical the system, the shorter the time worth choosing.
Who should get the alarm: on-site staff, the operations manager or the technician?
You decide, for each system, each site or the whole organisation. A typical list has three steps:
- Staff on site, who can do the simple checks: is the door shut, is stock blocking the evaporator, does the system have power.
- The operations or technical manager, who has the overview and decides whether a technician is needed.
- The refrigeration contractor on call, who takes over when it needs a technician.
Your refrigeration contractor can sit on the list as the on-call contact. The contractor chooses which of its own people receive the alarms, so their rota can change without you editing your list. The technician sees the system’s readings and history before setting off and can bring the right part.
For facility management companies running refrigeration for many clients, the same list decides whether an alarm goes to your own team, to the client or to the contractor. More on refrigeration monitoring for facility management.
How do we get a refrigeration technician with 24-hour cover on the alarm?
Start with your current refrigeration contractor. Most offer 24-hour cover, and the service contract usually says what it includes and what an out-of-hours call-out costs. Ask who should be listed as the on-call contact, and whether they want alarms by SMS, email or in the app.
If you have no contract, choose a contractor close to your sites who offers 24-hour cover and knows your type of system. Distance matters a lot for how quickly a technician arrives at night. The contractor can use Maci Service free of charge to see the system’s data and history and to write the service report.
What is the difference between a temperature alarm and a warning weeks ahead?
A temperature alarm goes off when the temperature crosses a fixed limit, say 5 °C in a cold room or −18 °C in a freezer. By then the system is no longer working as it should, and you have hours to save the stock. A warning from Maci Intelligence comes when the compressor current, the pressure or the temperature pattern changes, while the room is still at its normal temperature.
| Temperature alarm | Warning from Maci Intelligence | |
|---|---|---|
| Triggered by | Temperature crossing a fixed limit | Current, pressure or temperature departing from the system’s normal behaviour |
| When | Once the fault has happened | Typically 3 to 6 weeks before a breakdown |
| What you know | That it is too warm | What is drifting, the likely cause and how much time is left |
| Typical outcome | Emergency call-out, often at night or at the weekend | Planned daytime visit |
Maci Intelligence also raises an alarm when the temperature is too high. It simply gets that far less often, because most faults develop gradually and show up in advance. How the AI learns each system is explained under AI in Maci, and how a warning becomes a planned visit under predictive maintenance.
Why does the fridge temperature alarm keep going off, and how do you stop false alarms?
Most false refrigeration alarms come from fixed limits that do not match how the system actually runs:
- Defrost: the temperature rises a few degrees during every defrost, and a tight limit trips several times a day.
- Doors left open during deliveries or restocking.
- A probe mounted by the door or right in the air stream from the evaporator.
- A limit with no delay, so a brief spike sets the alarm off.
Too many alarms for no reason teach people to ignore them, and then the real one gets missed as well. Maci Intelligence learns each system’s normal behaviour, defrosts and daily swings included, and tells you when the pattern changes. Alarms come in three levels, so a critical alarm at night stands apart from a warning that can wait until morning.
What happens during a power cut?
Maci Intelligence measures the electrical current on the system. If the compressor stops because a fuse has blown or a phase is lost, it shows in the current readings before the room temperature has had time to rise much. The alarm then goes to the list.
The list of recipients is also held by Amazon Web Services in the EU, outside the app’s server, so alarms are still sent if the Maci app is down. If the whole site loses power, it depends on whether the sensors and the router or LTE modem still have power. If you hold stock that cannot survive a long outage, talk to us about backup power for the network when we go through your systems.
What should you do when the alarm goes off at night?
- Acknowledge the alarm in the app, so it does not move on to the next person.
- Read what the alarm says: what is drifting, its level and the likely cause.
- Do the simple checks: door shut, power to the system, fuses and RCD, the controller display, ice on the evaporator, stock blocking the air intake.
- Keep the door shut. A closed cold room holds its temperature longer than most people expect.
- If the alarm is critical, or the checks do not help, call your contractor’s on-call technician.
- Check the product temperature, and move stock to another cold room if it is getting close to the limit.
- Add a note to the alarm about what you did.
Every system has a chat with its controller manual and self-help guides in your own language, so whoever is on call gets help with the checks. If the system has stopped altogether, see the guide to refrigeration breakdown.
What does an alarm monitoring centre cost compared with automated monitoring?
The three ways to get a refrigeration alarm solve different problems and are priced differently. The biggest cost is rarely the alarm itself. It is the call-outs and the stock that is lost when the alarm comes too late.
| Reacts to | How early | Who acts | Drawbacks | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Staffed monitoring centre | Alarm signals from the controller or a probe | Once a limit is crossed | An operator works down the call list | Only sees the alarm the system sends, and reacts once the fault is there |
| Temperature alarm with SMS | Temperature crossing a fixed limit | Once it has got too warm | Whoever receives the text | Many false alarms with tight limits, and the simplest have no cause and no escalation |
| Predictive monitoring (Maci Intelligence) | Current, pressure and temperature on the system, measured against its own normal behaviour | Typically 3 to 6 weeks before a breakdown | The recipient list, with escalation and the contractor on call | Needs sensors on each system and a person or contractor to act on the alarm |
The price of Maci Intelligence depends on the number of systems and sensors and is given as a quotation after a short review. The fairest comparison is what an emergency call-out costs you today.
A full comparison of data loggers, controller alarms, monitoring centres and predictive monitoring is in the refrigeration monitoring comparison. How fewer alarms turn into fewer call-outs for a facility management company is under fewer call-outs.
Questions and answers
How do you get a refrigeration alarm by SMS?
With Maci Intelligence each recipient turns on SMS with their own mobile number. The alarm then arrives by SMS, in the app and by email. Simpler temperature alarms with SMS usually have a SIM card in the probe and send a text once a fixed limit is crossed.
Can an alarm be acknowledged, and can you see who responded?
Yes. Whoever takes the alarm acknowledges it in the app, and it goes no further. For every alarm Maci keeps who it went to and how, who took it and how it was closed, with the technician’s note.
Is Maci a staffed alarm monitoring centre?
No. Maci Intelligence is automated round-the-clock monitoring with alarms and escalation. Nobody at Maci phones round. Your own people and your refrigeration contractor are on the recipient list and act on the alarm.
Can we keep our contractor’s 24-hour cover?
Yes. The contractor can be on the recipient list as the on-call contact and chooses which of its own people receive the alarms. Many put the contractor last on the list, so they are only called when your own team cannot sort it out.
Does it work for freezer rooms and freezers?
Yes. Maci Intelligence monitors cold rooms, freezer rooms, freezers, display cabinets and serve-over counters with the same sensors and the same recipient list. Limits and normal behaviour differ, and the AI learns each system on its own.
Will the alarm still come if the Maci app is down?
Yes. The list of recipients is also held by Amazon Web Services in the EU, outside the app’s server, so alarms are sent even if the app is down.
What does Maci Intelligence cost?
The price depends on the number of systems and sensors and is given as a quotation after a short review. For comparison, a typical emergency call-out in Denmark costs about €360 excluding VAT for around 15 minutes of work.