The new Vera3 comes with an integrated battery backup, which is awesome except your modem, all your z-wave devices, wifi, etc is still going to go down. You need a real battery backup that will stay online long enough to fire off notifications that your net is down.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001BTWQDS/
I picked up an el cheapo APC UPS ES 450. It has 4 battery backup ports and advertises 30 minutes in a power outage. It has a funny USB to Ethernet cable (the Ethernet end hooks up to the APC), so you can control and monitor it from the Vera2/3. However, the kernel device does not exist on the Vera and you have to install that. You’ll also need to install the monitoring daemon. To my knowledge the Vera2 hardware is the same so you’ll have to go through these steps:
1.) Log into your Vera as root.
2.) Install the USB-HID kernel object. You don’t need to compile one or anything - you can install this one that’s close enough.
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=65676
http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=182132
Here’s what I did:
root@MiOS_18273:/# cd /lib/modules/2.4.37.9
root@MiOS_18273:/lib/modules/2.4.37.9# wget "http://www.dd-wrt.com/phpBB2/download.php?id=5266" -O hid.o.tgz
Connecting to www.dd-wrt.com (83.141.4.210:80)
hid.o.tgz 100% |*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************| 14293 00:00:00 ETA
root@MiOS_18273:/lib/modules/2.4.37.9# tar xzvf hid.o.tgz
hid.o
root@MiOS_18273:/lib/modules/2.4.37.9# insmod -f hid.o
root@MiOS_18273:/lib/modules/2.4.37.9# cat /proc/bus/usb/drivers
usbdevfs
hub
acm
serial
usb-storage
[b]96-111: hiddev[/b]
hid
root@MiOS_18273:/lib/modules/2.4.37.9# cat /proc/bus/usb/devices | grep HID
I: If#= 0 Alt= 0 #EPs= 1 Cls=03(HID ) Sub=00 Prot=00 Driver=[b]hid[/b]
3.) Now that the HID device is installed, we need to install the daemon
opkg install "http://downloads.openwrt.org/backfire/10.03/brcm-2.4/packages/apcupsd_3.14.7-1_brcm-2.4.ipk"
Refer to http://www.apcupsd.org/ for more info on how to interact with the device.
4.) Modify your config file. Its in /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf
5.) Check to make sure it’s running:
root@MiOS_18273:/lib/modules/2.4.37.9# apcaccess status
APC : 001,035,0892
DATE : Wed Sep 14 20:53:47 CDT 2011
HOSTNAME : MiOS_18273
VERSION : 3.14.7 (1 August 2009) unknown
UPSNAME : ups1
CABLE : USB Cable
MODEL : Back-UPS ES 450
UPSMODE : Stand Alone
STARTTIME: Wed Sep 14 20:52:44 CDT 2011
STATUS : ONLINE
LINEV : 126.0 Volts
LOADPCT : 0.0 Percent Load Capacity
BCHARGE : 100.0 Percent
TIMELEFT : 126.0 Minutes
MBATTCHG : 5 Percent
MINTIMEL : 3 Minutes
MAXTIME : 0 Seconds
SENSE : Medium
LOTRANS : 092.0 Volts
HITRANS : 139.0 Volts
ALARMDEL : Always
BATTV : 13.5 Volts
LASTXFER : Unacceptable line voltage changes
NUMXFERS : 0
TONBATT : 0 seconds
CUMONBATT: 0 seconds
XOFFBATT : N/A
STATFLAG : 0x07000008 Status Flag
MANDATE : 2011-04-09
SERIALNO : 3B1115X42707
BATTDATE : 2011-04-09
NOMINV : 120 Volts
NOMBATTV : 12.0 Volts
FIRMWARE : 844.K2 .D USB FW:K2
APCMODEL : Back-UPS ES 450
END APC : Wed Sep 14 20:53:49 CDT 2011
If anyone wants to attempt to write the plugin with me please let me know.
Thanks,
Kristopher