Detecting loss of mains power remotely

[pc1966]

A friend of mine has solar panels & inverter and rents out the property. However, the RCD feeding it trips occasionally for no obvious reason (could be local supply disturbances, etc). Those renting it won't bother checking the RCD so is there any simple/cheap device that will periodically say its alive so they know the RCD has tripped?

It is quite remote so would have to be based on mobile network or similar as I'm not sure the tenants would leave the (rather slow, copper phone line) wifi on all the time, etc.

TL;DR Simple way to check power is on using public networks

 

[Avo Mk8]

May aswell add soem ring cameras to see what is going on there as well

Aside from ethical/privacy and Data Protection issues, I would feel very uncomfortable about having active cameras in a property I was letting to tenants. That would surely not be right (or legitimate)?

 

[Spoon]

Not a fan of these camera's. Below is one of the reasons why.

Amazon's Ring fired four employees for peeping into customer video feeds

The Amazon-owned smart doorbell company has been criticized for its security measures.

www.cnbc.com

 

[littlespark]

Just read that article, and this bit;

“ and after determining that the individual violated company policy, terminated the individual.”

Seems a bit harsh. I thought they were just firing them.
Asta la vista…..

 

[DPG]

Not a fan of these camera's. Below is one of the reasons why.

Amazon's Ring fired four employees for peeping into customer video feeds

The Amazon-owned smart doorbell company has been criticized for its security measures.

www.cnbc.com

Anybody who wants to watch my driveway is quite welcome. I would say they need to get out more though

 

[WoodenSpoon]

I use a UPS for my server, cost about 80 quid. Power goes out, beeps like a mofo continually and kicks into battery mode. There is no ignoring it if you are in the house.

 

[pc1966]

If the wifi can be made reliable you could wire in a Shelly EM and clamp the relevant circuit to have a nice history of the consumption too. It works via the cloud so requires registration for remote access, but with no monthly fees.

That might be of interest, as she has had problems with the inverter before so reporting what is being generated / fed to the grid is more fundamental than if the AC is connected.

Having said that, most folk are not going to check often so by time they look it could have been weeks of outage so really something simple like a SMS alert would be ideal. If it can be made cheap enough!

 

[Strima]

We've used these on various sites and would do the job. The sim contract is about £2 per month.

RF Solutions EZTEXT Remote Control System & Kit,Quad Band GSM

Cheaper than the £20 a month one company wanted...

 

[edexlab]

I did something similar for a customer whose board was hidden behind kitchen cupboards and he was concerned it would go off without him realising for some time.

I used a din rail box 230v relay green and red indicator lamps and a loud buzzer couple of din rail terminals and fuse total cost around £25.

PV supply held relay on and supply to buzzer /red lamp came from the non Rcd side of the board via NC contact.