Vera3 alerting when power is out?

Community Playground General Discussions
1

Hi!
I would like to use a vera3 with the following setup:
*A vera 3 connected to the wall
*A wireless 3g router running on current from one of the USB ports on the vera3.

With this setup i hope to capture an event on the vera when the power goes out and send an alert of some kind through the 3g router.

Would this be possible? Or can i achive this some other way?

2

When the power goes off, so would your Vera and your 3G router. You would need to have your Vera connect to either a UPS or a 12v switching power supply with battery backup in the first place. You would then have Vera monitor the power. When power is lost, your system could still send a notification this had occurred.

3

I read this as if the vera3 had a built in battery, that is not the case then?

Power Supply
Input AC 100 ~ 240v, 50~60Hz
Output DC 12V/2A
Battery Pack External, Rechargeable

If not, do you know of a compatible UPS that could be used?

4

No a Vera 3 does not have internal batteries, the Vera light can run on batteries but someone would need to give more advice on the capability without main connected powering a USB device.

Any small UPS would do this. Depending on the 3G router, I would power it directly from the UPS and this, not take up one of the USB ports of the Vera.

You then setup a scene to monitor an always on device that has a constant draw or your house power depending on what you have. When you power is cut, the UPS would provide power to both the Vera and 3G router and the scene would notify you of the event.

5

This sounds like a great solution! Could you recommend an always on device suitable for this? Thank you very much for all your help.

6

It really depends on what you monitor in your own environment. Thing such as a fridge with a smart switch maybe a option. You want to setup this up first and then monitor using something like dataMine to ensure reliability in current draw etc. in addition, you may implement delay reportlng to ensure you do not get false reports. Good tools to assist here maybe countdown timer, variable container, combo virtual switch or a virtual switch…

7

As I only want to send alarms when the power is out (to begin with) I guess I need the simplest monitor solution possible for this. Any ideas?

8

A smart switch on your fridge is normally the most dependable current drawing device. The smart switch will constantly provide updates to your Vera but I am missing that won’t occur when the power is off. I need to a have a little think about this or someone can assist here.

9

Another option would be to find an UPS that can report back it’s current status to vera. That would probably work if i can find one that is supported.

10

I use the Ping Sensor plugin to periodically poll a Network device that doesn’t run on UPS. When the house power goes, the network device is no longer around, and the Ping Sensor sends me a notification.

My Vera, my main house network (switches, DSL, etc) are all on UPS, but my Wifi devices are not so I just ping their IP address.

11

Ah that would work. Then I would have to set up another server just for the purpose of pinging it though, seems a bit much, but it’s a solution if I can’t find any other way to set this up. Thanks.

12

No, not a server. Vera is doing the ping, via the ping plugin, to any ‘always on’ network device that’s not running on a UPS.

In my case, this is to an Apple Airport express unit, which only consumes a few watts. It can be to anything you already have that’s IP enabled and responds to ping (a TV, a receiver, an IP clock radio, etc)

13

True, I’ll just need a pingable device, something stable though. Thanks for all help.

14

Good to see that @guessed stepped in and provides the simply solution needed.
Funny thing is I have it set up here for another reason, and this never crossed my mind.

15

I had forgotten that I’d set it up, until recently. I got 2x alerts from it within a single week and the 2nd time caused the Oven to freak out (never had to power cycle an oven before 8) )

When I got the 1st notification I thought something was screwy with Vera, but sure enough I’d lost power.

16

I use my alarm panel to warn when power is off as it reports a trouble when it happens, and this triggers a scene in Vera.

For a simple UPS, there is a battery pack listed in a thread here somewhere that can be used and plugged in-between the wall wart and Vera. I’ll see if I can find the link!

Edit

Here’s the link:

http://forum.mios.com/index.php/topic,3573.msg39748.html#msg39748

http://www.focalprice.com/EB185L/YSD12480_DC_12V_4800mAh_Super_Capacity_Rechargeable_Liion_Battery_Blue.html

17

@strangely another simple and very reliable solution.

A few more posts like this and we will be calling you “Master”
What do I have ping sensor set up to monitor? The 2DS…

18

[quote=“Brientim, post:17, topic:172100”]What do I have ping sensor set up to monitor? The 2DS…[/quote]it wasn’t using the ping plugin, but anyhow I’m not sure the method I used works anymore, I previously had it set up to use a vendor code configured through a scene, but I just checked and I must have never bothered to set this up again a little while back (after a wipe).

More on this here:
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,5154.msg37692.html#msg37692

Unfortunately the option to use vendor codes either isn’t available with the 2DS, or its just the option is missing from the advanced scene selection like it used to be?! (@guessed?)

19

I haven’t removed anything, so it should still appear under Advanced Scenes. We’ve had a series of Beta’s since I added that logic, so perhaps something is amiss in the JSON that only the newer versions picked up.

20

[quote=“strangely, post:18, topic:172100”]More on this here:
http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,5154.msg37692.html#msg37692

Unfortunately the option to use vendor codes either isn’t available with the 2DS, or its just the option is missing from the advanced scene selection like it used to be?! (@guessed?)[/quote]

@strangely, yes, you’re correct in that it isn’t available in the advanced tab because as you post in the attached link defines this action as a trigger… Lol. So, @guessed is correct… Nothing has been removed.