Power Outage detection

[FlyBoyBob]

With all the recent wild weather here in the NorthEast I would like to add power outage detection if possible to my Hometroller SE Pro.

The Hometroller, my router, and the ADSL modem are all on a UPS that according to the logs of the recent 16 hour outage (for me) kept everything alive for 2 hours, including internet access. I log many of my readings every 10 minutes and noticed all the battery devices (of course) kept reporting but the hard-wired devices simply had unchanging values.

One thing I did note was my Trane thermostat, which runs on 24vac, had a 0 for the temperature reading 2 hours before the UPS gave up, so that is the point where the power went out I assume.

Has anyone else implemented a power-out script? I have a power-on script that sends me an email with the new IP address since the modem will DHCP a new address when it disconnects (cheaper than paying for a fixed IP). I will implement an email warning based on the Trane temp going to 0 but was looking for a more standard way of doing it?

Thanks in advance for any ideas,
bob

[Rupp]

There are a couple of UPS plugins that can notify you if the power fails and the server is running on UPS power. Look for power in the HomeSeer updater.

[tenholde]

http://www.tenholder.net/tenware2/te...r/default.aspx

tenholde

[FlyBoyBob]

http://www.tenholder.net/tenware2/te...r/default.aspx

tenholde

Excellent link - thank you!

Luckily my UPS is made by APC, which is the brand specifically targetted by this plug-in.

Thanks again for the link,
bob

[Uncle Michael]

If your UPS doesn't provide feedback, another way to detect a power outage is to note the device values of key devices (like your thermostat temperature reading). Since it's unlikely that the temperature inside your house is 0, you can use that as an indication of a probable power failure. If you monitor one or two more devices, then if all of them are in the 'no-power' state at the same time you can have pretty high confidence that a power failure has occurred.

[FlyBoyBob]

Hard-wired power-off states

If your UPS doesn't provide feedback, another way to detect a power outage is to note the device values of key devices (like your thermostat temperature reading). Since it's unlikely that the temperature inside your house is 0, you can use that as an indication of a probable power failure. If you monitor one or two more devices, then if all of them are in the 'no-power' state at the same time you can have pretty high confidence that a power failure has occurred.

That was my first thought Mike, but checking my self-scripted logs I have the values of 6 AC powered dimmers and 3 dry-contact relays recorded (on the same 24vac transformer as the thermostat) and those values are not usable. The dimmers went from zero to a valid dim state (1=99%, another=50%) and stayed there; and the relays froze at 0 (off) or 255(on) although one actually changed reported value, which must have been what HS was commanding and certainly not what was reported from the device, which was dead.

Obviously HS deals differently for different types of devices as far as returned status is concerned, and for whatever reason the Trane plug-in seems to be the only one (for my system at least) that returned a non-valid value that I maybe can use.

The HS logs during that time of course were massive and very colorful, with none of the polled devices responding to updates. I was hoping there was some way of detecting all those non-responsive modes via a script? hs.DeviceLastChange seems fairly useless despite the name. I suppose hs.PollDevice could work but I'd have to do many and all the time, I'd rather have a single reliable indicator or a notifier if possible. I know their is an Analog/Digital input device that is a possibility too, but expensive.

Thanks for the help so far,
bob

[FlyBoyBob]

http://www.tenholder.net/tenware2/te...r/default.aspx
tenholde

This looks like an excellent possibility, however....

1. I have an APC Back-UPS ES 550 with the USB Data connector plugged in.
2. APC PowerChute Personal Edition that came with the unit is installed and displaying values from the UPS
3. Control Panel | Power Option Properties | UPS Configuration identified the manufacturer automatically and the Com Port, I set Model = "Smart Signalling to any APC UPS.
4. The lowest box shows "The UPS service is currently stopped"
5. tenHsPower utility shows "Online" "NoSystemBattery" and "Unknown" 3x
6. This is all on a Hometroller SE box

Any ideas / advice appreciated
bob

[mrhappy]

If it shows the UPS services as stopped just try typing services.msc in the Run command, when the list loads scroll down and look for the Uniterruptible Power Supply record. Look in the status column first to see whether it says stopped/started/disabled, if it says stopped/disabled then click start the service.

[FlyBoyBob]

ups.exe missing

If it shows the UPS services as stopped just try typing services.msc in the Run command, when the list loads scroll down and look for the Uniterruptible Power Supply record. Look in the status column first to see whether it says stopped/started/disabled, if it says stopped/disabled then click start the service.

Doing as suggested... "cannot find specified file"... looking at Properties it wants C:\\Windows\System32\ups.ex... searching both the XP box and my Windows 7 PC and the APC install disk does not find that file... M$ "Download Center" replies with "huh??" and every Google link I click on wants to sell me some DLL-Fixit program...

Any ideas where to get this file?
bob

[mrhappy]

right...maybe better waiting for a reply from one of the gods from HST in that case to clarify whether your version of the HomeTroller has been built with the UPS service in it. I've got ups.exe on my XP PC (do you have another XP PC?) but i'm not sure just sending you the file will not upset anything else.

Alternatively if you can get the APC PowerChute working then take a look at the script Jon00 wrote, it reads the realtime.dat (IIRC) file directly into some HomeSeer devices.

[Uncle Michael]

. . .for whatever reason the Trane plug-in seems to be the only one (for my system at least) that returned a non-valid value that I maybe can use. . .I'd rather have a single reliable indicator or a notifier if possible. I know their is an Analog/Digital input device that is a possibility too, but expensive.

If you have a digital input available, then a very simple method is to use a wall transformer (I have a drawer full of orphans from discarded devices). Wire the output to the digital input. The DI should switch from on to off in a power outage.

[Uncle Michael]

You might also take a look at Jon00's remote computer control package. It provides a way to monitor devices on your LAN and there may be a way to detect a power outage based on the status of one or more devices or processes.

[Wadenut]

I think it was Jon00 who provided us with the APCUPSD script.
I's dependent on a separate program of the same name which provides quite a bit of info about the current state of the UPS.
Using it, I have several events running:
Stage 1 power failure: Which shuts down the 'other' computer I have connected to the UPS after 1 minute.
Stage 2 power failure: Shuts down the HS machine when the battery reaches 10%.
(Some of these "record" numbers don't look right. Probably because I didn't reset them after replacing the computer)

[randman]

I use an APC SmartUPS with a Network card that also has a web server (I actually have 3 of these for various devices). I configured the card to send me an email whenever power is lost or the voltage drops too low. Since my cable modem and router are also plugged into their own UPS, I still have network connectivity when power is lost. I get email immediately when power is lost (assuming that network connectivity outside my home to the cable company is not lost). I also get email once power becomes available.

Another advantage of the UPS is that I can also use the UPS' built in web server to remotely reboot (by powering off and on) devices that are connected to it. I haven't had a need to reboot my HomeTroller remotely but the ability to do so was useful back when I was using the Vera 2.

So far, I haven't had the need to interface the HomeTroller with the UPS other than plugging it in. If power is lost, there's not much I can control with HomeSeer anyway (other than battery operated devices that don't need beaming intermediary nodes).

I thought it would be useful to have HomeSeer know when power is lost so I can shutdown my HomeTroller gracefully when, say, I only have 5% power left. But what if power goes down to 5%, the HomeTroller is shutdown gracefully, and then power comes back on BEFORE the UPS actually runs out of power? In that case, how will the HomeTroller start back up automatically since it was shutdown gracefully and power was never really lost (so the BIOS setting telling it to start back up upon regaining power does not take effect)? I suppose I would have to login to my UPS' web server and power off and on connected devices to get the HomeTroller to boot back up? That would require manual intervention. I suppose as long as it is safe to lose power while HomeSeer is still running (I.e. HomeSeer Database isn't corrupted) then I'm better off letting the UPS run out of power and have HomeTroller turn off ungracefully).

[drozwood90]

Blades BLUPS works very well. That is what I use.

--Dan