YB88
Recycles dryer sheets
My wife and I have a cabin in the mountains. We get electricity there, but no internet --- a full-time internet connection would be a lot of money for something not often used or useful (we can get sort of minimal internet while there via cell phones).
Power outages are always an issue, especially in winter. I have a big UPS to allow the fan on our propane stove to bridge modest (couple hours) outages. I've got a sump pump in the modest cellar (fortunately rarely used) as well as a dehumidifier.
At any rate, I'd like to have some way to check to see how many outages there have been since last visit, and how long each outage lasted. I don't have confidence that I could get reliable information about this from my power company unfortunately. They do text us when power goes out, sometimes at least, and sometimes they text us when it comes back. 'Nuff said.
There are off-the-shelf consumer devices to log outages and/or (more frequently just) to alert you that an outage has occurred. I find, however, that all of them assume that I have internet available.
I thought about trying to cobble something up using Raspberry Pi or Arduino (effectively very small cheap hobbyist 'computers' that can be purposed for odd stuff like this). I've no experience with either of these, and am not keen to jump into that rabbit hole if I can't find a really clear set of instructions to put something like that together. Unfortunately, again, all the online discussion I can find about doing something like this assumes I have internet available.
This post is just sort of a last gasp query in case I'm missing something obvious. A power outage recording device is certainly not a "must have", but if I am missing an option, it's something that I would *like* to have!
Note that I do realize that there are crude approximation options --- put a penny on top of ice a cup in the freezer, for example, or perhaps have a plug-in analog clock and guess at outage(s) duration using that. I'd really like to know for sure how many outages there have been, however, and how long each one lasted.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this.
Power outages are always an issue, especially in winter. I have a big UPS to allow the fan on our propane stove to bridge modest (couple hours) outages. I've got a sump pump in the modest cellar (fortunately rarely used) as well as a dehumidifier.
At any rate, I'd like to have some way to check to see how many outages there have been since last visit, and how long each outage lasted. I don't have confidence that I could get reliable information about this from my power company unfortunately. They do text us when power goes out, sometimes at least, and sometimes they text us when it comes back. 'Nuff said.
There are off-the-shelf consumer devices to log outages and/or (more frequently just) to alert you that an outage has occurred. I find, however, that all of them assume that I have internet available.
I thought about trying to cobble something up using Raspberry Pi or Arduino (effectively very small cheap hobbyist 'computers' that can be purposed for odd stuff like this). I've no experience with either of these, and am not keen to jump into that rabbit hole if I can't find a really clear set of instructions to put something like that together. Unfortunately, again, all the online discussion I can find about doing something like this assumes I have internet available.
This post is just sort of a last gasp query in case I'm missing something obvious. A power outage recording device is certainly not a "must have", but if I am missing an option, it's something that I would *like* to have!
Note that I do realize that there are crude approximation options --- put a penny on top of ice a cup in the freezer, for example, or perhaps have a plug-in analog clock and guess at outage(s) duration using that. I'd really like to know for sure how many outages there have been, however, and how long each one lasted.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this.