Describe Your Success Stories From Power Outage

I want to create a plan - what works?

Our setup has recently changed. I was using a MacBook Pro (with a built in battery backup) and now I'm using a Mac Mini on a traditional battery backup. In both cases, the battery only needs to keep Indigo running for about 15 seconds until our whole-house generator kicks in. I have all devices set to remember their last state after power loss (those that have the option) so things return to whatever condition they were in.

We live in a rural area where power losses are common and our recovery plan gets a good workout. My only complaint is the power loss alarms of our UPS units--I wish there was a way to silence those.

have all devices set to remember their last state after power loss.

Thanks Dave. Is this a setting in Indigo or something you configured/wrote?

Thanks Dave. Is this a setting in Indigo or something you configured/wrote?

Neither actually. What I was referring to was individual Z-Wave devices that have that option.

I guess that would make for a powerful plugin.

From the opposite side, pre-outage planning, I have wired sensors to the outputs of each group of circuit breakers in our panel. And then monitor those for instant alert if we have an outage, either by blowing a GFCI, or having a full-scale power outage. By the way, I am in France, so the wiring here is quite a bit different than the US. Each group of 1 to 8 circuit breakers is protected by a GFCI. So, I only monitor those, but, of course, you could monitor all the breakers if you wanted.

https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B08LVYYCZ6?psc ... ct_details

Thanks. I'm going to start with a UPS and some software and then I'll work with what you've given me.

Whenever Indigo Server comes back on, it checks the status of indoor and outdoor lights and sets them according to the time of day and the last known “house mode” which is a variable containing either home/away/sleep.

This works moderately well for me, but I have some old Hue compatible GE bulbs that often fall out of connection with the Hue Hub after a power outage, and there’s nothing to be done for them besides manual resetting. Wish I had put Z-wave dimmers in for my exterior lights.

Whenever Indigo Server comes back on, it checks the status of indoor and outdoor lights and sets them according to the time of day and the last known “house mode” which is a variable containing either home/away/sleep.

This works moderately well for me, but I have some old Hue compatible GE bulbs that often fall out of connection with the Hue Hub after a power outage, and there’s nothing to be done for them besides manual resetting. Wish I had put Z-wave dimmers in for my exterior lights.

Good Idea. I'll definitely consider a process for coming back online. I assume I can set something in Indigo if the UPS tells Indigo it's going dark (because the battery is running out).

Good Idea. I'll definitely consider a process for coming back online. I assume I can set something in Indigo if the UPS tells Indigo it's going dark (because the battery is running out).

Mine is just a set of triggers that run on server startup, but yes, if you’re using a UPS plugin, you could do that too.

Its complicated.

The first thing is for Indigo to detect a power failure. I can do this in 2 ways: the first is from the Alarm system plugin that notes the alarm system is now on battery mode which is generally the fastest, and the 2nd is from my Synology Server which is connected to a UPS, can detect AC loss, and can send out a text message to Indigo. (and to me). The Indigo UPS plugin is too slow to respond, and won't report back to Indigo fast enough to be of much use.

Like one of the previous posters, I too have a whole house generator, so it's really a matter of getting Indigo to tell everything what to do once the generator kicks in. Its pretty quick to come on, but complicating things are the Hue and Lifx bulbs, all of which have to power on, then check into their hubs in the case of Hue, or get connected to WiFi in the case of the Lifx. That does take some time to complete, so I have to figure that delay into what I want Indigo to do.

(And as a side note, the generator is connected to a Raspberry PI which can notify me of power issues via text message, but I haven't been able to integrate that into Indigo as of yet)

Generally just a DAY restore group and a NIGHT restore group. Complicating this slightly is whether I am at home or not. No need to leave the lights on if no one is home, so that too is part of what Indigo has to manage as well.

And I'll be the first to say it's not fool proof. Lots of weird things can happen in literally the seconds from when the power goes out, when the generator kicks in, and when power is restored. Depending on the timing of all of those events, things CAN go wrong. I'm lucky enough to have a fiber internet connection which seems somewhat immune to power failures, so even if I'm not at home, I can manually mange these events if necessary. But that's generally just an Action Group away from putting things back like they should be.

All helpful

Today I added a Cyberpower CP1500PFCLCD to the setup. It powers my Mac Mini and Modem/Router. PowerPanel, the UPS software, estimates that I have 135 minutes of backup power.

• When there is 5 minutes remaining on battery power the UPS will shut down the Mac Mini. (I'd love to be able to save all device states here)
• I have a trigger that will tell Indigo when the power goes out based on an event from my Insteon PLM. )
• The next step is to determine what to do when the power comes back on. I'll start with the advice to consider Nighttime, Daytime, and presence detection.

Thanks everyone for the advice