Power Outage Detection

Posted on
Fri Sep 13, 2013 9:54 am
vjf offline
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Joined: Sep 13, 2013

Power Outage Detection

I have Indigo 6, a MAC mini, and a 2413U modem. All networking equipment is on a UPS, and I have a whole-house generator backup that kicks on after about 15-20 seconds of utility power loss. Everything works great. My issue is, I'd like to create a trigger when a loss of power is detected, and another trigger when it is restored to shut down appliances/lights and adjust the thermostats to save generator propane. My issue is: there is no power loss detected by Indigo, and the event logs are like nothing happened. I think the 15-20 seconds might be too quick for the detection. Before I try to increase that time on the generator panel, is there a way to somehow adjust the polling to detect a quick power flicker?

Posted on
Fri Sep 13, 2013 11:00 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Power Outage Detection

Is your Mac on a UPS? If not, then when it looses power then restarts Indigo won't know that it was a power loss. It only knows if there's a loss of communication to the PowerLinc. So, the Mac has to be on constantly and will detect the loss of connection to the PowerLinc and identify that as a power loss.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Sat Sep 14, 2013 5:44 am
vjf offline
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Joined: Sep 13, 2013

Re: Power Outage Detection

Yes.. sorry I failed to mention that. All networking equipment and the mac are on the UPS. The UPS works great with the generator, and all of the insteon devices work great while on generator power. I also have a Filterlinc on the UPS, but tests have shown I don't need it (I have another house with a different UPS that requires the Filterlinc). On my last power down test, the logs in the mac mini did not show a power hit or reboot. BTW - this is in a remote location, so I will be re-doing some more tests when I'm there next month. My goal is to at least get the trigger to work when the house is on generator power and send me an email. Last time I arrived there, all of the clocks were blinking, the propane was 20% lower, yet I had no signs of an outage in Indigo or the mac.

Posted on
Sat Sep 14, 2013 8:25 am
jay (support) offline
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Re: Power Outage Detection

Well, when you're there, yank the PowerLinc and see - Indigo should recognize the interface is gone and fire any Power Failure events.

Another thing to look at is to see if someone has a UPS plugin/script that will work with your UPS (if it has a USB connection). There's a new plugin based on apcupsd for APC UPSs that might also work for you.

Jay (Indigo Support)
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Posted on
Sat Oct 11, 2014 7:22 pm
alang_94526 offline
Posts: 250
Joined: Apr 13, 2009

Re: Power Outage Detection

I have a similar issue and thought from Jay's comment that keeping the Powerlinc off the UPS will create some power trigger when the power comes back on.
I also have a UPS for the MAC and networking and kept the Powerlinc on the regular power supply.
It doesn't generate any power fail triggers that I can find when the power comes back on (or off).
The net result is Indigo is unaware the power went off and came back on again.

Any ideas?

Posted on
Sat Oct 11, 2014 7:32 pm
alang_94526 offline
Posts: 250
Joined: Apr 13, 2009

Re: Power Outage Detection

Sorry I was too impatient when testing the "Interface Connection Intialized, Power Failure and Interface Connection Failure" triggers.
They just take time to detect and all work fine.
So, Jay going back to your suggestion - good one :D

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