Alerting when Power is out

I read on a previous post that somebody wired a BRK RM4 relay into an outlet connected to a Monoprice door sensor to send an alert for when the power goes out. I am struggling with how to connect the orange interconnect wire from the relay and the previous poster will not respond. Can any one help with this?

I have the relay connected to the outlet (hot-hot, neutral-neutral). And the brown and blue wires wired into the Monoprice sensor with the gray wired capped off. How does the interconnect wire get connected in this setup?

For the Power Out detection you need to use the Interconnect wire so the Relay fires while power is on. That is how I read it here: Alerts during a power outage

Also This may help as it is similar except instead of using the Smoke detector you are connecting directly to power. Hardwired sensors

Thanks for the response. That was the topic I was following. And I tried messaging damohabir but he hasn’t wrote me back. That diagram is the same that came with the relay. So is it saying to combine the interconnect and hot from the relay and connect it to the outlet? I’ve tried multiple combinations of this with now luck. Somebody out there has to have a solution to this

To me it sounds like you only need the Interconnect. The HOT/Black seems to be a pass through to power a device on the other end. Since you are only interested in firing the Relay you should only need the Interconnect in my opinion.

You should be able to test this by hooking it up and using a meter to see if the relay is firing and closing the circuit.

I believe that is all he used it to do was close the circuit to trigger the sensor.

If this is a physical relay you will hear a click when the relay is activated.

Interesting. I’ll have to try that when I get back home tomorrow. So does the black hot wire from the relay just go nowhere? I don’t need to use it? And use the orange interconnect as the hot going into the outlet?

Strike my previous post about leaving the Black wire disconnected. I found some different instructions from BRK. Looks like Black/HOT is used to power the relay.

EDIT : Ok so now BRK is giving conflicting information. It may still be possible that Black/Hot is a pass through for power. Still I would do what I recommend below and add an extra Test with the Meter. Once the relay has fired you need to test if you are getting 120VAC through either the Blue or Gray wire. If you get 120VAC through either of these then you may want to disconnect the 120VAC Black/HOT.

Personally I would test it this way.

Hook up Black to HOT, White to NETURAL and then Orange to NEUTRAL.

Get a Meter and test continuity between Brown and Blue. If you get continuity then the Relay has fired. If you don’t it hasn’t.

If it hasn’t then try putting Orange to HOT and test continuity between Brown and Blue.

NOTE: I would put the Orange wire to Neutral first to test. This way you won’t accidentally blow out the relay. If going to Neutral activates the Relay then you know it was meant to go to Neutral and not to BLACK/HOT. If it doesn’t fire the relay then you can be pretty certain it needs HOT power.

Perfect! Thanks for this. I will try this all out tomorrow. Hopefully I haven’t blown the relay already haha.

Take the battery out of your Smartthings V2 hub. You’ll get an alert saying it’s offline. So you will know if either your power is out or your internet is done. It’s not perfect but it’s free.

Often the point is to be able to monitor various GFCI/GFI or other circuits in the house - not just general/overall power.

For instance, it would be nice to get a notice that the power to my UPS running my network router and wifi is down - before the UPS runs out of power. But also, I have another circuit that can pop occasionally that has a media player on it - it would be handy to know when that looses power, too.

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@dmw999 Couldn’t you put a micro controller from Aeon Labs
http://aeotec.com/z-wave-in-wall-switches/928-micro-motor-controller-manual-instructions.html


into each (or even just one outlet on each circuit) and when it disconnects from ST, then that would mean the power is off (or something is wrong). I don’t think there would be much in the way of programming to get this done. I’ll have to see if I can program something that would do this to see if it would actually be workable.

Note: Anything that connects to a outlet could be used. Doesn’t have to be a micro controller. It could be a Smart Energy Switch, Outlet, Power Strip, etc. The router and ST would both have to be on a UPS.

Wouldn’t the device just appear as on or off (as in the last state before power was interrupted)?

@bago Yes, with the way most devices/apps are programmed now. In Wink, it tells you if a device is disconnected or not. Should be able to do the same thing in ST. There should be a way to add in some programming to a device or make a smart app that would tell if the device is reachable or not. My Groovy Foo is new, so I’m looking at a way to make a app to check the status of a device to see if it’s still reachable or not. If it’s not reachable, then something is wrong, like the power is out or something else.

Let me know when you find it. I have not found that on ST.

EDIT: Wink has local control, right? With ST the apps run in the cloud (other than Smart Lighting). The devices always appear connected and reachable.

Hey, I tried this today with no luck. Attached is a pic of my setup. It also did not work with the orange attached to HOT. See anything wrong in the picture?

@LennDel looks correct. Maybe a bad relay.

Too bad who got this working won’t respond.

Maybe a dumb question, but should the battery remain in the window sensor or take it out?

You need to have it installed.

I ordered one of these relays. I will report back my findings.

Awesome. I will be awaiting your results.I have another relay on the way because I may have blown the first one I had.

I am pretty sure mine is toast. I did get it to relay a couple times. I believe the interconnect from the BRK smoke detector is a specific voltage. I tore apart mine to inspect. Diodes, resistors and a transistor are part of the neutral and interconnect circuit.

Whoever said they had this working I don’t believe it could still be working. The idea of this would be that the relay inside would always be activated while your power was on. Once power was off the relay would go into the resting position thereby triggering your sensor.

You would need the interconnect to be constantly ON in order to trigger the relay. The only way to get the relay to fire on mine was to apply ac voltage however I believe this overcharged the circuit and probably burned out one of the diodes or the tansistor.

Is you still wish to use something like this to trigger power out I would recommend purchasing a decent relay that ranges up to 250V AC on the trigger (A solid state relay would be up to this task). If you can’t find one with enough of an AMP rating you may want to install a fuse inline. Then hook up to your sensor either Normally Connected or Normally Open however you wish for it to trigger. Many relays have both options.

I will be throwing this BRK relay away. Sorry I couldn’t help further.