I have a bathroom in my basement that is serviced by a sewage extraction pump. Occasionally, I’ve gone downstairs and found the breaker tripped on the circuit its on. As my wife and I only people in house, not a big deal. But my son and family are moving in for a few months and I really would like to alarm that outlet so it’s clear there is an issue.
[BTW, I know the correct thing is to identify the cause of the tripping, and I’m working on that)
Is there anything I can plug into that outlet that will let me know when power is out? (I’m not interested in measuring the current, etc)
There are several different ways to do this, but one of the simplest is just to plug anything at all which communicates with smartthings into that outlet and then use the community – created “simple device viewer” Smart app to notify you when that particular device is no longer responding.
I believe @a4refillpad uses that smartapp for this purpose, and might be able to say more.
And here’s the thread for the smart app if you decide you want to use it.
There are some Beeper alarm devices which are not networked, but you might be able to pick up their alarm with a Leeo acoustic sensor and then have the Leeo notify SmartThings through IFTTT. Quite a few people are doing that for existing smoke alarms or water leak alarms. The problem is the Leeo itself requires mains power so it would have to be plugged in on a different circuit than the one that keeps going out. So that may not be practical for your particular use case.
People used to do this with the first generation of the SmartThings motion sensor, because it would switch itself over to battery when the mains power failed, and you could capture that event. Unfortunately, that device is no longer made.
There is a new nightlight from Centralite which has a similar feature, but I don’t know if anyone has created a custom device type handler for it and it keeps going out of stock. So that one may be a good choice once it’s in full production, but that might not be for a few months.
Personally, I would look at the simple device Viewer smartapp approach first. It’s more setup than just plugging in a device, but it’s available now, it works well, and it has a lot of flexibility in terms of the different features you can use.
Hi, as long as the outlet produces regular events then it can be monitored successfully with the SDV. In your case I would use any smart outlet that has power monitoring capabilities. As that should create plenty of events whilst it is still alive.
With webCoRE you could try a condition using the “stays unchanged” trigger. Typically power is reported when changed or at regular intervals. Find the sweet spot interval and send a notification when the trigger fires (if there would be events, the timer would reset, when events stop, the timer will mature and fire the piston). Start with “stays unchanged for 4-6 hours” and work your way down until you find what time interval works best without giving false alarms
