Are there any simple solution to have automated emergency lights when power is lost?
I have the hubitat and routers on battery backup. Various lights around the house is on battery back up too. I'd like to try and have the lights goes on whenever power loss is detected. I understand there are existing emergency lights which turn on when power is lost but why add more battery which need servicing.
What is a good solution to detect power loss and trigger the hubitat to turn on the preselected list of lights on backup power.
I think Ring z-wave repeaters have a battery built-in, and they can report to the hub when they are on mains or battery power. That makes them a useful trigger for power loss or restore events. That’s probably the simplest way.
It’s also possible with various UPS-based solutions, if you have any that are connected to an always-on server (or are themselves LAN-connected).
I have a non-smart plug in light that automatically comes on if power is lost. And you can lift it off its holder and use it as a torch. I just leave it plugged in, it's never needed any maintenance or batteries changed or anything, in years. If power was lost, would the hub even be listening for events? You'd need a UPS for the hub if nothing else.
You’re right that the hub itself would need to be on a backup power source for any of this to work. The hub doesn’t have the ability to detect its own power source, though.
But the hub can receive events from devices that report their power source (mains or battery), and for which there’s a Hubitat driver.
Ring has to go through the cloud doesn't it? So you need a UPS for the router as well. This reminds me of an unsolved dilemma I had (I'd say "have" but I've given up) I wanted something to monitor the phone line electrical current or voltage or whatever to see if it got cut.
That only works if the Ring repeater has a direct (no hop) route to the hub, rather than going through a mains Z-Wave switch. Sadly, we can’t specify routes - they keep changing. I have half a dozen Ring repeaters throughout the house. At least one of them always seems to have a direct route to get the power fail event to the hub.
I've seen those lights but they are not what I'm looking for. I already have various lights around the house on UPS but the lights do not automatically go on when power is loss. The hub and router is on UPS power too.
What i'm looking for is a device which preferably is plugged into the UPS but will monitor the Main power. Upon detection of loss of power it will trigger the the Hubitat to turn on all the various lights in the house which are also on their own UPS.
You might be able to do this with the equipment you have already.
It depends on the UPS (most can report power source), and if you have a NAS or other server plugged into one (something that can tell Hubitat the UPS switched from mains to battery).
