Outlet power failure

I have a refrigerator in my garage. The outlet powering the fridge shares a circuit with the outdoor power outlets and is GFCI monitored. When the GFCI trips due to moisture or other outdoor problems it kills power to the fridge. I thought it would be pretty easy to find a z-wave device that would monitor for a power failure but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I could get a temperature monitor and monitor for cooling failure but I’d rather find out before there is a temperature change. Anyone have a simple straightforward solution?

I think you might be able to try the Aeon Labs Smart Energy Monitor clamps

Just from reading the questions on Amazon:

Question: Does this product work with SmartThing Hub 2nd gen?
Answer: Yes they do. I have two of these working with the 2nd Gen, one in the main electrical box for the house and another inside an electrical box for the garage. I’ve been using these with batteries, so there is about an eight minute lag between each reporting cycle typically, which for my needs isn’t an issue.

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While I can’t answer your specific question I thought I’d share the following. I had a smilar situation to what you describe but with a freezer in my garage. I had an electrician out to do some work and I spoke with him about this. He told me that freezers are never supposed to be on a GFCI-connected outlet (probably to prevent things like what you describe - not sure if there is more too it), so he installed an outlet for me that wasn’t GFCI protected.

The cost wasn’t too much. Given that it sounds like this will be an ongoing problem for you with moisture, you may want to just look into getting a new outlet installed.

The outlet is not GFCI, the entire circuit is. All outside outlets and the outlets in the garage are on a single circuit with a GFCI outlet closest to the circuit box. Sounds like a lot but there are only 5 outlets total. I could swap out the GFCI but that wouldn’t be a very safe solution.

It looks like I wasn’t clear and maybe I should have said circuit rather than outlet. We installed a new outlet that wasn’t on the GFCI-connected circuit. He may have setup a new circuit for this, but I don’t recall.

I’m not sure how this would work in my scenario. I could tell when the fridge was running because the power consumption would increase, but how would I determine power failure vs just idle?

The other problem seems to be that if a z-wave device is plugged into the same outlet when the power fails, the device can’t communicate with the hub until the power is restored. The only way power is going to be restored is if I found the problem and fixed it so might not be possible to do what I want.

My Nest Protect tell me when the power fails, maybe I should put one on that circuit somehow. Pretty expensive solution. :sob:

Idle will still have power draw, just minimal.
Failure should have no power at all.

That device can be run on batteries (which is why I included that question/answer from Amazon) so it can still report back to you even with a power failure.

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Another option might be a open/close sensor that has terminals like Link

Wire a 120v relay to your outlet and then the relay contacts to the sensor and bam when power is lost it will trigger the sensor. I use the same setup for my doorbell.

Did you ever find the device type or smart app for this? I have been searching the forum with no results.

Log into the IDE

Click on My Device Handlers

Click on the green box in the top right corner for New Device Handler

Click on the tab for From Template

First one in the list is the Aeon Home Energy Meterr. There is also the Aeon Home Energy Meter + C3 and further down the one called Home Energy Meter.

I don’t personally own one of these, so I’m not sure which of those Device Handlers everyone else is using though.

Thanks, I was directed there, and no I am not sure which one is the one to use. I guess I will have to guess and try each one.

I would say the Home Energy Meter should work, as should the Aeon Home Energy Meter (since that is the specific brand of the device). I’m not sure what the +C3 is on the second one unless it’s the ability to add an extra clamp.

I am not sure as there is a new version that has a wire that connects to the line to measure voltage which makes it more accurate.

Does anyone know for sure if the firmware needs to be updated, as I have only Mac’s and they only have Windows firmware?