Still new to HE and moving away from Vera. The more and more I move over, the more and more I am excited about finally getting everything off my Vera. But to get to the point of this question/topic. I scoured through a bunch of topics, but didn't find what I was looking for.
For a little background. I have a family vacation cabin with a Vera today. It only has about 6 Z-Wave devices and maybe 10-12 rules, once I move them over. This location does suffer from the occasional power outage and I do have a spare UPS in my possession, but I have fears for when the battery gives up and dies. The battery controlled outlets stop sending power, which would turn off the hub. And since the cabin is an 8 hour drive for me, I can't just pop over and get it running again. I'm really curious on the risks for the HE hub running without a UPS. The last thing I want/need is a dead UPS preventing me or another family member/guest from getting in. (Automated locks and only 3 people have a key due to other reasons. None close either, or technical, other than me though.)
So what are the risks of running a HE hub without a UPS? I know there is the risk of DB corruption, but if less than 10 devices and only a small handful of rules, and Cloud Remote access, could I fix it all remotely where I couldn't fix a dead battery. Would it self heal upon a restart? I've seen the 18650 battery options, or RAVPower bricks, that will keep power to the HE while its input power is being turned back on (plugged into the wall.) But the fear of the 18650 battery unit causing a fire is worse than a corrupt DB. And I don't know which RAVPower bricks definitely output power while the input power is coming or going.
Looking for a safe, simple, and maybe stupid proof option. TIA
How about installing a Ring extender? It has a battery and will tell the hub when it has switched to battery power. That and a UPS (either DC or AC) would keep the hub running long enough to trigger a rule that would do a clean shutdown. You'd be w/o automation for the length of the outage but it should all come back. Or perhaps a 5v DC power supply with a nice big deep cycle AGM (if you don't like Lithium Ion) and a small solar panel?
That can happen with any UPS. If you want, you can have a set of keys to a trusted person near the cabin to swap out the ups in case of critical failure. You also want to replace the battery itself about once a year to year and a half. even if the unit dies, the surge protection in it should still work. Another thing you could do is wire in a whole house battery... The end result is you can never 100% protect against power failure or hardware failure
Hmm. Recently my Eaton UPS died because the battery failed. Yes, the Surge protection side still provided power, but the battery controlled side outright stopped. If there is a known UPS, CyberPower, or APC, that will bypass the battery and still provide a surge protection on the battery side, I'm good with that solution.
Right... for that matter that could happen even with a large battery, though there are fewer components to be concerned with.
Does your zwave lock have a keypad? You could always use what we call a "fire ID." In this scenario you'd have a couple of key codes set aside for emergencies, perhaps in a sealed envelope. If the hub failed completely you could always issue a visitor one of the key codes and then change it as soon as power came back and any hub damage had been fixed.
If the UPS failure is that big a concern you might consider that the hub or lock hardware could fail as well. HE seems pretty solid but never say never. If you're that concerned and you have two locks you could have two different HEs on two UPSes each connected to a separate lock. But that seems like over-engineering to me.
I should add my last UPS failure was a capacitor, not the battery.
Two locks in one door. One does the keypad and the other doesn't. And in the event of a power outage, the non-keypad lock would fail to unlock either way since when the primary lock successfully unlocks, the hub sends the unlock command to the other lock. I have toyed with the idea of adding a keypad to the other lock, just for this reason. But a UPS would solve both problems. Unless the UPS was dead AND there was no power. (Starting to over think the problem now and plan for the utmost worse case.)
You make a very valid point. My Eaton was an older UPS. I do also have a spare key hidden/locked on the property. Knock on wood I have not had an issue for the 2 years this has all been in place. And I replace the batteries in the locks annually too. I also monitor the levels and they have never dropped below 70%.
Looks like I'll be getting a new UPS and HE C7 controller for the place.
Thanks everyone for the ideas and being a sounding board. Love this community.
