I have seen a few related posts on this topic but no real direct hit, so I thought I post again. I created an applet in IFTTT to trigger using Rachio’s event “Device Offline”, see picture
When this triggers, the resulting action is to make a phone call to me. But when I try to test it by turning off power to the Rachio the device shows offline in the Rachio app, but the applet never runs. It appears that the device offline event never fires. Has anyone used the device offline event successfully? Any ideas or suggestions will be much appreciated.
I believe this only works with the extended 24 hour offline notification, and not the standard offline status (which we don’t display in the event history)
@franz is it possible to get the immediate standard offline status in some other way? possible via REST API call or webhook? What I am trying to find out is, if there is a power outage at my home. I want to be alerted if there is a power outage at my home, I thought the device offline event would give me that trigger and I would equate that to a power outage.
While it won’t help you if your main breaker trips, utility companies generally have telemetry on lines 12 kV or higher, so they are immediately aware of any neighborhood outages. Most allow you to be notified on such outages, along with their estimate of restoration time. Check your account portal, or give them a call.
If you have a central station monitored alarm system, you can configure it so an ‘AC failure’ trouble condition gets reported and the central station will call you. My alarm is intentionally not on UPS power so I’m quickly notified (your alarm battery will typically run it for 5 hours or more without power).
Most kinds of ‘smart home’ hubs, smart thermostats, etc. can be configured to notify you when they go offline. If your home phone service is with a VoIP provider, they may have an option send a notification if registration is lost.
If you have an account at SmartThings or similar, even without a hub, you could set up an app to notify you if a device stops reporting. For example:
If you have some sort of server that runs 24/7 with protected power (along with your networking gear) and your internet connection usually stays up in a power failure, you could set up a monitoring script to report when a non-protected device goes offline.
Otherwise, if you have an account on a VPS or similar cloud server, you could run a script that periodically pings something at home and reports lack of response.
