I have a Pump that is hooked to a Zen15 plug. That all works almost too perfectly because I never pay any attention to it and when a problem occurs it can take quite some time before I notice it. Every once in a while the GFCI that its on will trip and the pump goes for hours/days without running.
I found the “Device Activity Monitor” app and that works ok to send a basic notification but what I really want to do is trigger a Rule when it has been offline for too long. The only way I have been able to find to do this is with this rule shown below.
Note: Right now its tied to a virtual switch and sending a notification just for testing
I don’t actually know what “powerhigh” represents but it and “powerlow” seem to be one of the few values that zero out when you issue a resetStats. Other than those all the other values stay the same even after a reset when the Zen15 abruptly loses power.
My question is, does anyone know a better way to handle this? I have looked all over and can’t seem to figure anything else out. It would be better if I could just use something from the “Device Activity Monitor” app to trigger a rule but I can’t find a way to do that.
Anyway, this method seems to work for this model switch but I would much rather do something more universal if such a thing exists.
Power High is the highest reading it has read since you reset the power statistic. I have 3 of these and have that reporting turned off. So, I don't know how that works after power losses.
I know that the Voltage High does not reset after power loss.
The other thing you could try is after issuing the on command in the rule that turns on the pump, you could do a 30 second wait and then an if pump switch is off then send a notification. If the power is out to the circuit, the switch isn't going to change its status.
Also note, in your rule above, you should probably be using a wait for elapsed time instead of a delay to prevent the rule from running multiple triggers at the same time.
I use a Ring Range Extender V2 that has a battery for detecting power outages. (I think you can still find them on Ebay for ~$15) I set a rule that alerts me when it switches to battery. So, assuming that is not the only outlet on that circuit, you could do something similar.
The blue blurb here in Documentation explains the Wait vs Delay thing… Painting with a broad brush here, using a “Wait for elapsed time: xx:xx” is pretty much always a better way to go instead of using a Delay (at least in terms of helping prevent multiple simultaneous runs of the rule).
So, if your automation turns the pump on and off, you can have a check to see if the device state changes after both. When you turn on - wait 30 seconds, check to see that it is on - if not alert. When you turn off - wait 30 seconds, check to see that it is off - If not alert.
To be fair, this may not ALWAYS be a power outage situation. I have times where my Zen 15's just go offline. But, you would at least have the alert to make you check it.
I only turn the plug on and off once per day. Since this is a pool pump on a salt water pool I need it to run all day. To use on/off I would have to cycle the power once per hour and that would not be good for the pump long term.
