Is the dog OK?

Everyone knows that it's dangerous to leave a pet in a car during summer—but is it safe to leave a pet in an Airstream?

Compared to a car or truck, the Airstream warms up much more slowly. It has insulation, tinted glass, and a lot more "thermal mass", all of which help. But still, it will get too hot for a pet in the summer. It's just a matter of time. A couple of hours of your RV parked in full sun on a really warm day could easily be the end of an animal. Even the time it takes for a short shopping trip to Wal-Mart could be dangerous.

So the answer is "No", an RV is definitely not going to be a safe place for your pet on a hot day, without air conditioning. (We repeat this message every year around this time. It's sort of our Public Service Announcement for RV pet owners.)

But ... we have air conditioning!

Of course, you're not a dummy and you always leave the air conditioning on when you leave your pet alone in the Airstream. That's what we do for our travel buddy, Mickey, too.

Unfortunately, it's far from a perfect solution. Air conditioners can fail. The power plug can overheat and melt. The power can go off in the campground. If one of those things happened, we'd want to know right away so we could rush back to the Airstream and save Mickey.

September daytime temps were around 80 at Elephant Butte Lake State Park in New Mexico, but the interior of our unshaded Airstream was much higher

So over the past few years I've been testing various products that are supposed to alert you when the temperature gets too high in your RV. Generally speaking, most of them work. But all of the ones I tested had issues:

• they are pretty expensive ($100-200)
• some require a subscription fee
• setup can be a royal pain 
• they aren't trustworthy (it's difficult to know if they've stopped working)
• they require batteries
• some have a phone app that sucks

Let me save you a lot of hassle and time. Don't buy any of the dedicated RV monitors or pet monitors. Instead, just upgrade the thermostat in your Airstream to a Micro-Air EasyTouch model. Doing so solves two issues in one product: improved thermostat usability and functionality and a way to monitor the temperature in the Airstream for your pet while you are away. 

Why we chose Micro-Air EasyTouch

The Micro-Air thermostat is worth buying just for the additional features beyond what is offered by the Airstream-supplied GE, Dometic, or Coleman thermostat. You get a really bright and colorful touch screen, a ton of useful features, and it is super-easy to install. 

But beyond all that, the device also allows you to remotely monitor the interior temperature of your Airstream or other brand RV. That means you can see exactly how comfortable your pet is via the Micro-Air phone app. No subscription fee, no added cost, and no batteries needed.

The remote monitoring feature works when you connect the thermostat to WiFi that you have in the RV. The WiFi can come from a cellular hotspot device from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc., or Starlink, or any other method you have for connecting to the Internet. As long as the thermostat can connect to WiFi, and your phone has service, you can open the Micro-Air app and see what's happening.

(For more detail, our friend Brad from Thirteen Adventures made this video that explains how to set up remote monitoring using the Micro-Air app.) 

You can also set notifications, so that when the temperature goes higher or lower than you'd like, you will get a warning on your phone screen, like this:

My favorite feature of all is that you can change the setting on the air conditioner or the furnace from your phone. So if you're out touring mid-day and decide your pet would be more comfortable with the temp at 72°, you can turn down the thermostat without going back to the Airstream. No "pet monitor" on the market can do that!

We discovered this particular benefit a few months after installing the Micro-Air. We'd been enjoying its ease-of-use features, but just hadn't thought to use it to manage Mickey's comfort while we were out. After two years of searching for the best "pet monitoring" device, and hundreds of dollars wasted on monitors that didn't work well, the solution was right under my nose. 

Now, the Micro-Air thermostat is what we use for peace of mind on a hot day. It's "Mickey tested—Mickey approved"!