Alert from hub if outlet loses power?

Hi, all. New to the community, and a bit of a novice on these sorts of things. I’ve been searching this community and reddit, and can’t seem to find a straight answer - forgive me if I’m beating a dead horse.

If I have the ST hub and a ST outlet, and the outlet loses power (the hub stays powered), is it possible to get an alert from the hub to the app, or using an IFTTT applet?

I’ve read a few places that you need a switch rather than an outlet - is that the case?

Basically, I’m trying to monitor power feed to two outlets in my garage, where I have chest freezers plugged in. I’ve been told the power flow out there can be a little wonky, so am trying to set up something that will let me know if either of the outlets goes out for some reason. I’m not that handy when it comes to electronics, so I don’t want to try and make my own sensor (I’ve seen multiple posts from people who have).

Any thoughts/ideas/suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

First question I have is which SmartThings plug do you have? This matters because there are ones that offers energy monitoring. And with that, you can set up alerts based on the amount of energy being used by whatever is plugged in to it.

You can also use the SmartApp called Simple Device Viewer and set it up so that you get a notification pushed to your phone if a device doesn’t check in In a set time you’ve described.

I haven’t purchased anything yet, as I was trying to get an answer to this before I did so. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to plug the freezers into any of the outlets, because of their heavy (er) power draw. If I can, that would seem to be the easiest solution - though, randomly, do freezers cycle like refrigerators do? (Told you I was a novice…)

Thanks!

Sorry, I misunderstood the question. For our fridge in the garage, I use the Zooz Zen15 power switch to do this exact thing. Seeing as we don’t go in it every day, we wanted the piece of mind knowing if it ever just turned off. I also put temp/humidity sensors in both the fridge and freezer to have a better eye on how things are going and setup notifications via Simple Device Viewer to get an alert when temperatures get too high. It’s rated for 1500w 15amps. What’s the operational load of your freezer? Zooz is the house brand of @TheSmartestHouse and lots of users here use they’re products. I have about half a dozen of their devices and love them. You may want to take a look at it and compare:

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This looks great - thanks! Can you use the Viewer with the switch as well?

They’re both small chest freezers, so I don’t think the load is that high - am just trying to be careful. It’s an old house/garage with old wiring, hence my concern.

Thank you again!

You sure can. You can read about Simple Device Viewer here: [RELEASE] Simple Device Viewer and if you need help installing it, just check out the FAQ and you can find great topics on how to go about that. Good luck!

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Awesome. Thank you again - I appreciate the ideas/patience and your taking the time!!

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Not a problem. And because I got bored, here is a good link to get you started:
http://thingsthataresmart.wiki/index.php?title=Using_Custom_Code#How_To_Publish_Custom_SmartApps_and_Device_Types_to_Yourself_So_You_Can_Use_Them

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I would be cautious of using a solution like this. How long would you expect the outlet to not have power before your app recognized this fact and alerted you? How often will the device take long periods of time before reporting in the energy usage? It’s possible that in order to avoid false alarms, an app that looks at check-in time would have to use a period of time that is quite lengthy. Much longer than you would desire in an alert like this.

I would recommend instead, monitoring the power with a solution like this:

This would give you instant notification if power was lost.

Hi, Ryan - thanks for this. Unfortunately I wouldn’t even know where to begin as far as building that unit, which is why I was trying to go with something as simple as possible. I appreciate the alternate solution, though!

If you read through the write up all the instructions your need are right there.

Good point.

But I don’t think that instant notification is necessary for this application. Refrigerators and freezers will hold their temperature for quite some time without power so long as they’re left closed.

Having lived in hurricane country for a few decades, I’ve gone thru multi-day power outages.

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What sensors are you using inside your fridge and freezers?

Just cheap aqara sensors. It’s the only place I use them. ST multis for everything else. I have a few IKEA plugs out there for repeaters so I don’t have any connectivity issues, and I have the freezer sensor in a Ziploc bag just as an extra layer of protection.

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Absolutely. Just pointing out the limitation of using this type of solution and if that limitation is a problem, then a possible solution. Choices are good. :slight_smile:

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Trust me when I say that @Ryan780 knows his stuff! I don’t even have a HE hub but I frequently ghost read the community forum just to see the stuff he posts because of how informative it is. Very knowledgeable individual. I do agree that the polling threshold isn’t any ideal solution, but it should be okay in this case.

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Another good point. These are both standalone freezers in an already cool environment, so am not too worried if they lose power for a couple hours. I honestly don’t think they will - I’m just more curious than anything.

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And I definitely appreciate it! I have to confess, though, that I only understood about half of what was in the instructions. I’m sure I could take it to home depot and show it to someone. :woman_shrugging:

No, they probably couldn’t help you. If you have a solution that works, then go with it.

A low-tech solution to knowing how well refrigerators and freezers are holding their temperature are simple thermometers that record max and min temps. You do have to open the door to check.

Amazon carries any number of them.