Come on you tool lovers out there. Has anyone heard of the device I described on the subject line? Anything close?
I know my UPS beeps when the power goes out. Obviously not cheap, but has added utility.
Why do I find these so cool? Man, something for everything out there.
Would you perhaps be interested in a light that comes on every time I get a boner?
When I started calling the hardware store the toy store my family thought I was saying tool store. Then at one point someone paid attention to my excitement for a trip and what I actually said. Much eye rolling.
Several of my smartplugs let me know if they stop receiving power. The notification arrives on my phone, so even if i’m out i know there’s no electricity to the house. my parents often go away from home for weeks at a time and we use one on their freezer in case anything goes wrong.
How is the notification sent if there’s no power to the house? Presumably no internet service then either. Or is it sent by a remote service that loses contact with your home socket?
My guess: the smart plug pings a remote server every minute or whatever. If the home server stops getting pings, it sends a notification.
Could have a dying gasp capacitor which allows the unit enough time to send the message before turning off.
Doubtful because that’s a lot of work and expense to implement and useless if the router and modem don’t have power.
I could see such a feature if the device was designed to work over cell networks since it’s not dependent on other user hardware.
Surely something to look into. Thank you.
What situation is this for?
If my girls’ light goes out when it’s supposed to be on, and they are on timed cycles, I want an alarm. Messing with those light and dark cycles can mess your flowers up. Same for the water pumps, fans, etc. depending on the setup. I imagine with some pets like exotic fish or reptiles you’ll want extra notice if their habitat is going awry before they get ill.
Maybe something is tripping a breaker and they wanna know when it’s happening while they track the cause and repair. Or an out building/shed/coop has issues with weather and shoddy power stability, needs that breaker flipped again.
Possibly a deep freezer that doesn’t have it’s own No Power alarm, or that function broke, and they want to have that peace of mind back.
I’ve known many a use for them. If ALL the power is out it’s gonna be obvious whatever that’s going to is out also. But, for something where you don’t go to that space regularly, hard to tell quickly if powered, and has something sensitive needing power they are a nice peace of mind item (that usually costs less than whatever needs power that badly being replaced if you didn’tnotice in time).
Wow… very thorough.
In my case, we have a sump pump which protects the basement from flooding when it rains. If the power goes out while we are asleep, we cannot mitigate the rising water.
So — we need something that will awaken us.
Pedestrian compared to some of the scenarios you mentioned here.
I have one of these, it can run my sump pump for around 8-10 hours if the power is off. Make sure you get a quality deep cycle battery, such as a marine rated battery. Due to the fact that I had the battery back up, my homeowner’s insurance will cover my basement for an additional $10,000 over what they normally cover for basement flooding.
This is likely the direction I need to go.
The buzzer solution would require a lot of work. This just costs a good deal up front but it saves on the mitigation maneuvering which is not fun.
Thanks for the link.
Haha! I forgot about those uses too! We live in the desert now but I grew up in grass and swamplands. Haven’t had to think of a sump pump or dry-lok in forever. Very, very important alarm need if you want to keep things, that aren’t moldy. Oh the memories. We started our first grow in a moldy basement!
Here’s hoping you were spared the blackout during torrential rains.
And I suppose this is on me, but we bought this place which met all our dream features and when we heard it had a sump pump… having grown up in a desert myself, I didn’t exactly understand the ramifications.
I’m a bit stunned there isn’t a simple device that has a small battery in it that remains charged until it needs to scare you out of bed.
I learned in this thread about “smart plugs” which seem like they could be purposed to this task but even that’s not spot on.
We have one for our business. Years ago someone had accidently shut off power in a shared electrical panel to a freezer. It had thawed by the time we discovered it and cost us thousands in product. The screechy alarm has saved us a couple times since then.
Dude forgot to pay his power bill but has money to blow on devices that alert him that he forgot?
Maybe they live in Texas and are getting ready for possible power outages during the winter storms. Not sure what it would be for, I always hated that my battery backup for my work computer would beep when the power went out
Lol. Seriously though, even when I’m asleep, if the power goes out I hear it. There’s so much fucking noise generated by fans, computers, etc… that when it happens the silence is deafening.
We live in a part of town with very tall trees — when it gets windy, the power goes out due to branches falling.
I don’t know of anything commercially, but I have an idea of where to go.
I’m not sure exactly what you’re after, so let’s say I am living with someone who needs medical equipment to live and it needs.mains power and it’s for breathing support or whatever. If there was an extended power outage in the middle of the night, bad stuff might happen if the equipment wasn’t manually switched over to battery.
I could make something up using customized components bought from a hobby electronics store.
I would buy a low voltage plug pack, say 9 volts and this would plug into the wall and connect to a low voltage relay kit.
Relays have a common point and a normally open point and a normally closed point. Without power you can run an electrical current through common and normally closed. With power, this changes. The electrical pathway between normally closed and common is broken and common is connected to normally open.(or vice versa, been a while)
The shop sells a low voltage relay kit which I would connect to the plug pack and when it’s powered, flips the relay.
I’d wire up a secondary circuit, connecting normally open and common to a battery and piezo buzzer. When the power goes off, the relay flips and buzzer makes noise.
I’d also consider wiring a LED up to the battery as a way to confirm it still has energy and check the batteries monthly and replace yearly or so.
I would have to solder some wires and components to do this, but it wouldn’t need an electricians license here as it’s a low voltage component.
Hope it helps.
Edit: from the website jaycar.com.au, sample parts are:-
Mini piezo buzzer 3-16v dc 12v dc relay card kit ( picture and description doesn’t show me if it has wiring I’d need, but I think so) 12V DC 400mA Ultra-Slim Power Supply 7DC Plugs 4AA battery holder.
I’d also ask the staff for advice when Id go to buy the stuff as you probably want a resistor somewhere in both circuits.
Thank you so much! I was hoping for a How-To if a simple device was not available.
I just remembered something else which can remove the requirement for soldering.
A breadboard is a prototyping board where components can be plugged in and wires used to join different areas and make circuits. It’s common in kits for kids to learn about electronics but could also be used for a long term solution.
If you went to an electronics store like jaycar, and said " I’m looking to make a project where a plug pack holds open a relay open so when the power goes out and it closes to complete a battery powered circuit with a buzzer" then they should be able to sort you out with something.
And on second thoughts you do want a resistors between the plug packs and relay and the battery and piezo. If you don’t then it could use up more electricity to run.
