Smart home load shedding/blackout ideas

[@Cobrakaiedits-j3m]

Wow well done I really learned so much from watching your channel. Keep up the awesome work.

[@withoutawire224]

Thanks Clint. I really appreciate the comment and the fact that you learn from and enjoy these videos.

[@benitascheffers7950]

Very informative.Thank you for the links

[@karienverster4962]

I stumbled across your channel while looking for load shedding tricks etc, and found so much more than I bargained for. Some home automation guides as well. Thank you for the genuinely useful guides and information without adding unnecessary fluff like so many other channels do. Please keep up the work

[@withoutawire224]

Thanks Karien. Really appreciate the feedback.

[@JasonEmanuel]

Excellent shirt!

[@victorsmit4322]

The 13V-8Ah-104Wh battery from BlueNova has a 3 year warranty and will give you 3000 cycles @80% depth of discharge.

[@RolandAdams78]

Fantastic content...great tips and advice!

[@vaughanza]

Thanks for a great channel, excellent. I have Home Assistant and wondering if this Sonoff Micro can detect the % of your charge so that I can turn off the charge at 80% and start the charge at 50% ? It seems to be a better solution to the Sonoff basic ? Another question concerning adding 12v Lifepo4 battery to a UPS is that the Lead battery charger is not suited for Lifepo4 battery? my UPS runs my fiber router & router and would like to change it out with Lifepo4 as it is a single battery. Don't want to get a Mini / Small UPS for the routers, but rather something like the 12v battery. Thanks

[@vissie3828]

Hi Vaughan. Home assistant used what is called sensors. It's data generated by the code of the device or API which can then be used for measurement, triggers, validation, etc. Unfortunately, the Sonoff Micro will only provide an on/off sensor. It is merely a relay with a wifi chip and microcontroller controlled by the Sonoff app. I am not sure about Android, but the Apple integration for your phone or tablet gives you an array of sensors, including battery status and whether it is charging or not. You could use those sensors to trigger a routine that controls the on/off state of the Sonoff Micro instead. I would suggest using your phone's sensors for this purpose. Hope this helps. If we look at the second part of your post, the Lifepo4 drop-in replacements come with their own built-in BMS (Battery Management System) to compensate for the difference between the two types of batteries but do become problematic since you have two BMS components working against each other when the UPS dies. The UPS BMS needs power to read the battery status, but the current drawn to do so will keep the LifePo4 BMS relay open to protect the battery, which then requires a cold start (removing and reconnecting the battery terminals). I generally just add an external switch to the UPS to simulate that, which also happens to be the topic of my next video when I get time to film it. I would really caution against using an inline UPS over a DC UPS. The assumption is that they should have more backup time because they have a bigger battery, but that is not the case. I have a 2000va inline with two 7ah 12v batteries, which cost about R4k and only provide about 4hrs backup. I have a little 12 000mah DC ups running on top of that one which gives me another 7 hrs backup on my router at only R795. The DC UPS is smaller than an inline UPS and at this price cheaper than a replacement LifePO4 battery for your inline UPS. I have two of them, one on my ONT (Fibre), and one on my ISP router. This is just my view and experience, but I hope it helps you to make a decision on what will work for you.

[@koketsomathe5242]

Where can I get those small adapters? And what are they called? Is it just "adapters"?

[@withoutawire224]

It’s called Sonoff micro. The link is in the video description.

[@refaatscholtz7787]

What's the name of this battery is it a lead acid of gel battery

[@withoutawire224]

It’s lithium Ion batteries. They last longer, are more suited for backup and drainage and have their own battery management systems built in. I will not recommend lead acid or gel batteries for UPS or power backup, you’d have to replace them every year.

[@capeofstormz5974]

Do you turn off these lightbulbs when it's not loadshedding? How exactly do they work as some people complained about having to leave it on all the time. 🤔

[@withoutawire224]

They work like normal lightbulbs, but the difference is that it has a built in battery. If you used it during load shedding it needs to be charged by leaving it on. Charging period is between 6 to 8 hours, so with the current load shedding schedule you would pretty much have to leave them on so they can charge when the power is on.

[@geekcept9732]

What gel batteries did you have before?

[@withoutawire224]

It was normal AGM gel batteries. At this size you don’t have a lot of choices. The ones I had is in the video description and available at Geewiz.co.za.