UPS battery monitoring?

[wkearney99]

I've got a number of APC UPS devices around the house. Backing up power for various DVRs, PCs and game consoles. Power around here blips often enough during wind/rain events that it's been worth it to have the power kept stable behind them. But this, of course, introduces yet another set of maintenance items. The SLA batteries in them don't last forever. I consider it reasonable if I get 3 years out of one. But more often than not I don't find out one is bad until power goes out and the device starts squealing like a pig.

I realize there's probably not a good way to directly interface with all the UPS units directly. Some don't even have a PC-like thing connected to them (or even have the USB/serial monitoring port).

But it'd sure be nice to have HS3 involved in monitoring their replacement cycle. In a way that "fits in" with the way this plug-in seems to handle things.

Any thoughts on monitoring a virtual device that bases it's "battery value" on a number of days timer?

[TC1]

You already have the capability.
The plugin has an alert function for battery life:



Create a new virtual device called something like "UPS Battery"
By default it will have a child control device, off = 0 and on =100. Turn it on.
On the child control device change the Device Type string value to = battery
Once you do that and the plugin picks it up (wait a minute or two) you can then select it from the drop down for monitoring:

[wkearney99]

I had no idea, nice!

And I read over on this thread that I can set the duration and start date on each individual battery once it's set up as a monitored battery.

https://forums.homeseer.com/forum/ul...17#post1395517

Excellent!

[TC1]

The only thing I'll caution, because I've never tried it, is that you might have to cyclically update the virtual device so that the lack of battery value change doesn't trigger the activity monitor. That can be something as simple as script or event that writes a value to the child device once a day (or whatever your activity monitor interval is) and sets it to 100. As long as the timestamp updates then the monitor will assume it's alive.

[SteveMSJ]

The only thing I'll caution, because I've never tried it, is that you might have to cyclically update the virtual device so that the lack of battery value change doesn't trigger the activity monitor. That can be something as simple as script or event that writes a value to the child device once a day (or whatever your activity monitor interval is) and sets it to 100. As long as the timestamp updates then the monitor will assume it's alive.

You can turn off ‘Alert on Missed Wake-ups’ for specific devices’ so you just alert on battery life for that device.

Steve

[wkearney99]

Now, the next question is how to handle nagging reminders "effectively" in Homeseer?

I've been debating this for a while. Obviously having a screen showing lists of alerts would be helpful. But I don't have any actual screens set up for this.

I have some Honeywell thermostats that handle this relatively well. They have a big red light on the bottom corner that lights up anytime there's an alert. This could be a notice for a filter change (air or humidifier pad) or an actual problem. They handle the UI for this pretty well too. The touchscreen shows an "Alerts (x)" number on the screen and then lets you scroll through them, either resetting them or snoozing them. It's genius in it's simplicity.

I've often wondered how to best accomplish the same sort of thing with HS but never got around to really delving into it. Now I have a better reason.

For now, though, I'll probably take the easy way out and send e-mail alerts.

[SteveMSJ]

Now, the next question is how to handle nagging reminders "effectively" in Homeseer?

I've been debating this for a while. Obviously having a screen showing lists of alerts would be helpful. But I don't have any actual screens set up for this.

I have some Honeywell thermostats that handle this relatively well. They have a big red light on the bottom corner that lights up anytime there's an alert. This could be a notice for a filter change (air or humidifier pad) or an actual problem. They handle the UI for this pretty well too. The touchscreen shows an "Alerts (x)" number on the screen and then lets you scroll through them, either resetting them or snoozing them. It's genius in it's simplicity.

I've often wondered how to best accomplish the same sort of thing with HS but never got around to really delving into it. Now I have a better reason.

For now, though, I'll probably take the easy way out and send e-mail alerts.

I generally use Pushover for alerts and Email for reports. I also have various HSTouch screens for monitoring my system, and I display the SDJ-Health Root devices Status graphics on these for a quick reminder that something needs dealing with. I only use the HS Web Interface for configuring the system, so the HS4 'mobile friendly' interface isn't much of a draw for me. I do all configuration on a laptop, or desktop
There are many different approaches to this though, which is where the flexibility of HS is great.

Steve

[wkearney99]

There are many different approaches to this though, which is where the flexibility of HS is great.

Totally with you on that point. I am headed to the point of setting up some sort of medium-sized displays for status monitoring and limited control. It's kind of unfortunately there's no home automation control/display integration on the Amazon devices. Voice control is great, but the next step of using one of their screen devices would seem so natural... and there's nothing for them at this point.

There's a ton of little automation tasks that aren't really addressed effectively. Simple things like trends on usage for filters or other consumables like batteries or other household products. It'd be handy to have an unobtrusive way to track consumption and plan replacement of stuff like TP, soaps, etc. Not to be obsessive, rather to take the monitoring of those off my regular planning list. I don't "need" to track usage, rather, know when to restock/reload/replace the items and be informed about the need to get them handled.

Anyway, tracking UPS battery life is a welcome feature, thanks for integrating it with the plug-in.