I am setting up a small lake cottage to monitor temperature, water leaks and motion when we aren’t there. I want to monitor specifically for power outages. Knowing the hub is offline could indicate other issues, such as internet failure. I don’t want to make the two hour trip to the cottage for a temp internet outage. If I put a battery backup on my cable modem and router (and hub) my internet will still work fine for a while in a power outage. ST tells me they have no sensor for a power outage, and no solution and suggested I go to theCommunity for a solution. Any ideas how to specifically recognize a power outage?
The very first gen ST motion sensor had a USB power connector, and it reports going to battery or back to power. Those aren’t sold anymore, but maybe you can find one somewhere…
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@Morton2020, you can also use a MIMOLite. It will send a power failure message. It has a capacitor with enough energy to send one final message. I use one for a garage door controller, and another for my water valve. I monitor for power failure events in a scenario like yours. @bravenel’s suggestion is also a very good one if you can find a 1st gen device.
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Thanks, I’ll look into both those options. Even if the hub would simply send a notification automatically when it switched from AC power to the internal AA batteries, it would confirm the electrical power loss at a lake home or rental… and not just a loss of Internet or an ‘offline’ status. I would plug the router and modem into a UPS to maintain the Internet for a short time, and plug the Hub into the wall socket. Seems this would be achievable with a software update to the hub, I would imagine. No other accessories.
You could also try a free basic web based monitoring service, and set it up to ping monitor your internet router. This will at least tell you that you have either an internet outage or power outage.
Or if the cable modem/router is on battery, you could probably ping something else there that would be unreachable in the event of a power outage. Such as a roku, smart tv, connected dvd player etc, computer, etc. You have to use NAT/PAT on your router to redirect the ping traffic…
But I too would love to hear what you come up with, because I also have a remote vacation location setup with ST, and i would love to know when the ST v2 hub switches to battery power. While i do monitor it remotely, i still don’t have a great way to differentiate between power outages and internet outages.
Was the Centralite 3–Series night light every released? It does power failure reporting.
http://www.centralite.com/index.php/products/new-products-for-2015
I use the aeon Gen 1 whole house power monitor that goes on the mains in the fuse box. They r cheap on Amazon like 25 bucks. I have ups’s on all.modems routers switches and Smartthings. I use the energy alert smartapp to notify me of a power outage when the aeon reports below 100 watts of usage… you could also use rule machine i believe. oh yes the aeon also has battery backup which is necessary for this scenario
. I am surprised Smartthings doesn’t know u can do this.
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I also have been trying to add enhanced security to my part time residence. I have played around with a couple of coding solutions to power failure, but in the end I just bought a relay and hooked it to an SM103 door sensor as many others have done. The main issues with ST that you have to work around are two fold. 1) Almost everything ST does requires the internet (most apps run remotely). 2) The batteries in the V2 hub will last 2 hours at best (not very good for a remote vacation home). This leads your project to what I call “creeping elegance”. Individual battery devices install quickly but soon explode into a quarterly or semi-annual battery change event. Average small home UPS systems will last 24-48 hours before they die. I have gone to using a TP-Link dual (WAN/Cellular) router and powering both the router and the hub from a 12v group 29 battery that is connected to a 30W solar panel (and a backup sump pump). I have reasonable assurance that all will stay running in the event of break-in during an extended power outage. Where I was going with this is that a mod to the ST hub to sense a power failure would only be effective for a blip and not get you to where you want to be (unless you are just trying to turn the lights off after a short failure). I have been working with cameras also, but that is a different post.
Larry, just keep in mind that this needs to be in close proximity so it can communicate directly to the ST hub. It will work just fine with the configuration when power is up, but in the case of a power failure the entire mesh network will be down and this unit then has to communicated directly tot he hub.
I know… but I did get an alert when it was down… it is pretty much right below hub in basement
I used the water leak sensor and a relay to tell me when I have a power outage. This is good for your home or vacation home. I was kind of frustrated that there was no commercial option. This is really easy since the contacts on the water sensor are on the outside.
Excellent idea! Simple and inexpensive. Thanks!
Check this out, for a much simpler solution