Remote AC Power Monitor

[mitchmitchell16]

A few months ago during a rain storm, a circuit breaker popped at our trailer storage place and left our Jayco X213 without power for several weeks unbeknownst to us (we leave the trailer plugged in 24x7 so the converter can maintain the batteries). When we went to turn on the refrigerator the day before we left on a trip we found the batteries flat and our PentraMetric battery monitor screaming. We had to move the plug to another circuit to recharge the batteries overnight before we left so we'd have emergency brakes, and I'm sure this shortened the life of our two lead acid batteries significantly.

So, I started looking for a way to monitor the AC power in the trailer and get notified of any power outages. Enter Particle Asset Tracker Internet of Things kit --www.particle.io -- it has a small GPS unit, water proof case, LiPo battery, and a particle electron: an arduino like microprocessor with a cellular modem. The sim card for the modem costs $2.99 a month for 1MB of data (which is plenty for this application). There are some cheaper sims out there (www.hologram.io) for about $0.40 per month but for technical reasons they don't keep a channel to the particle cloud open without a keepalive ping which uses up more data.

I wrote a program for the particle electron to monitor usb power and report to the particle cloud whenever power was lost (the battery acts as backup power so it can report with AC power down). It also sends the trailers position and can report if it moves (built in accelerometer). I connected the particle cloud to another service that sends sms message (www.twillio.com) so I get a text message on my phone whenever power is lost. Problem solved.

But then my geek persona kicked in and I created a node-red program on a raspberry pi I had laying around to connect to the particle cloud and whenever it sees the power loss event, send a message to our google home mini speaker to announce that the trailer has lost power.

I know I have a temperature and humidity sensor laying around here so I will eventually add it to the tracker to monitor temps in the trailer while it is sitting in storage.

The build was a lot of fun geek-wise, and easier than I thought it would be (cheaper too). Now we will probably never lose power again at the storage place 😄

[Tom_M1]

Very interesting project. I tinker with the Raspberry Pi and Arduino devices and appreciate the resources mentioned.

A much simpler approach for folks not inclined to take a DIY approach is a Wink_Hub. This is a device that is a central part of a Home Automation system. I don't know if the Hub will send a power failure alert, but if it does, this is all you would need. There is a vast assortment of Z-Wave and ZigBee sensors and controls available that will interface with the Hub. The Wink Hub retails for $69 but is available online for less than $35.

Here's an article on setting up a Wink Hub:
https://www.howtogeek.com/297291/how-to-set-up-the-wink-hub-and-start-adding-devices/

Another approach is to use one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/KMC-Monitoring-Required-Control-Compatible/dp/B06XRX2GTQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&q...

I don't know if this would send an alert, but you could periodically check status of the switch.

[magicbus]

Very cool. Sounds like it has product potential! 🙂

Dave