Hi, I was wondering if anyone could help. We get power outages about every six weeks. We use a UPS for our critical items, I would like to set up some sort of alert that could warn me if the power has gone when I am not at home. My first thought is to use something like https://uptimerobot.com which can run a ping free ping test every five minutes, if no response it alerts me via text or email. I have tried this on a website and it worked but not sure how I could implement this at home. I have a fixed IP address if that helps? It's a wacky idea but cannot think of anything else. It would also be very cheap to implement.

You could definitely ping your static IP to see if your modem is online, and you could set-up an alert if the ping test fails, but if you're using a UPS for your modem then that won't help much, since the power could be out but your modem could still be online. You'd probably want to check on the status of a device that doesn't have a backup power source.

Since there's no way to externally set-up a ping to a device on your network (unless you're looking to expose a device past your NAT), then unless you have a device like a raspberry pi on hand, the most straightforward, cheap approach might be to purchase a smart WiFi-connected plug / power strip, since those have functionality to alert you if the device loses power.

Hi, I am happy to remove my wifi off the UPS, it's mainly for the computers so I get chance to save anything I am working on. Is it that straightforward to ping a router? I know my home IP address but not sure if I need to install anything else for a ping test to work? Do I need to host a server or something or will a domestic router do the job? I also have a printer that is on the same network, maybe that could be the second option? Although I think this device goes into energy mode after 24hrs

Depends on your modem / router; some of the newer ones don't respond to pings over the internet for security, but the older, more basic ones will reply. It's easiest to simply test it yourself (you could even test via Uptime Robot if you'd like).

Taking a step back; if your power routinely goes out, it's probably best to purchase a UPS that sends a "shutdown" command to your computer when the power fails, so that the computer can safely power-down. A low-tech solution like this is going to be your best bet.

Hi, tried it last night expecting it to not work. But it worked first time, not as complicated as I thought it would be. I now get a text if my power goes down

Didn't realise that you can guest post without login in. I've not been signed in for my last few posts... DOH.

Guest wrote: July 22nd, 2020, 12:22 pm Hi, tried it last night expecting it to not work. But it worked first time, not as complicated as I thought it would be. I now get a text if my power goes down

Congrats! Sounds like you found a solution that works well for you!