Power Off Alarm?

[Angelfire]

Another thread got me thinking that I really should install a power off alarm on a refrigerator at our family's cabin in the woods. A search of google was disappointing to say the least as I was looking for something that was wifi capable to allow for notification when I'm not there. There are cellular solutions but I'm not about to buy a cellular subscription for this. Was curious if anyone has knowledge of such a device or if I should start brushing up on my arduino foo.
Cheers.

 

[pattenp]

Is wifi even available if there is a total power loss to the cabin?

 

[Corndoggeh]

How far is it from your home? Technically you could use a pinging type system using the cabins internet and if power goes out then theres no pinging and you could have some kind of warning at your home when ot fails to send a certain amount of pings.

 

[XabuJr]

Is wifi even available if there is a total power loss to the cabin?

This. Unless your wifi & internet connection is connected to a UPS in order to send the notification, you're out of luck.

Even a cellular device, if done right should use very little data per month. Using a ping service to the WAN port of your router (most likely have to permit pings in the config) would be the best bet. There are a ton of options there too.

 

[Prototyper]

Here is a dead-simple method of detecting if a power outage and subsequent thawing of frozen food occurred. Take a clear plastic cup, fill with water and place in freezer. Once frozen, place a coin on the surface of the ice. Before grabbing that pack of steaks or burger, glance at the cup to make sure the coin is still on top. A coin under the surface or at the bottom of the cup indicates that warming has occurred.

Not exactly what the OP was asking, but still worth mentioning.

 

[dogdog]

...... Was curious if anyone has knowledge of such a device or if I should start brushing up on my arduino foo.
Cheers.

start brushing up on your arduino foo.... although I have no idea how you will get internet on remote cabin.

 

[XabuJr]

Here is a dead-simple method of detecting if a power outage and subsequent thawing of frozen food occurred. Take a clear plastic cup, fill with water and place in freezer. Once frozen, place a coin on the surface of the ice. Before grabbing that pack of steaks or burger, glance at the cup to make sure the coin is still on top. A coin under the surface or at the bottom of the cup indicates that warming has occurred.

Not exactly what the OP was asking, but still worth mentioning.

Someone been on Pinterest lately? This is actually a very good indicator method. For food safety, it can't really be beat. If you just want to know if the power goes off then that's a different story.

 

[mike in tucson]

There used to be an alarm device that would place a phone call to your programmed number if the power went out.....and you could also buy a water pressure detector as an add on....if I remember correctly. It also had a temperature alarm that signaled you if the temp dropped below some preset. The entire thing was via telephone....phone usually lingers a bit after power goes.....time for the alarm to make the call

 

[tthornto]

You would have to have internet access at the cabin for either of these options to work. 1. You could setup a system on your home computer that sends a ping every 5 minutes (or whatever interval you want) to the router at the cabin and it notifies you if there is no response from the router at the cabin.
2. Pick up a UPS with a built in network management card it, this is exactly what these UPS's are designed for. They send someone an e-mail when there is a power problem be it outage, brownout, or spike . New it would be over $500 for one but they can be had for cheap at surplus auctions/Ebay and usually just need new batteries to perform just like new.

 

[mike in tucson]

http://www.diycontrols.com/p-6020-intermediate-freeze-alarm-fa-i-cca.aspx

 

[Bustedwheel]

We bought one of these to tell us if the temp in a vacation home dropped to a certain level, or if the power went off. also comes with a wanter sensor for floods etc... Worked pretty well.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002MUAIP8/?tag=atomicindus08-20

 

[engineer2]

If you have a landline you can use an autodialer like this
http://www.supco.com/web/supco_live/products/ADTA.html

 

[Angelfire]

Is wifi even available if there is a total power loss to the cabin?

I have internet (fiber no less!) with a UPS (been told it gives about 20mins of access if the power goes out).

What I was really hoping for though is something that plugs into the wall that would communicate via the wifi/router to let me know if power is lost to that circuit/recept. I've had it happen twice now where the fridge/freezer goes on the blink but there wasn't a house wide outage. Once, the refrigerator decided to die on it's own and the second time, the freezer was on a GFCI that tripped (lesson learned). In both of those cases, I'd still have internet.

Cheers.

 

[Angelfire]

We bought one of these to tell us if the temp in a vacation home dropped to a certain level, or if the power went off. also comes with a wanter sensor for floods etc... Worked pretty well.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002MUAIP8/?tag=atomicindus08-20

It appears a few others have linked to similar items. This might just do the trick. I don't have a landline but do have VOIP so will research this a bit to see if it will work.
Thanks!
Cheers.

 

[theoldwizard1]

If you have access to a wireless network that is battery backed up, this is a pretty simple job for a Rasberry Pi. Of course the Raspbery Pi has to run off of a battery. Probably already done and posted some where.

 

[Thumper68]

I don't know if this will work for you but it is an idea.

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