Power Notifier : Get an email alert when your house loses Electricity


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Power Notifier

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Neowin's Simplezz and I have been working on an application called, Power Notifier. Power Notifier works in conjunction with your existing UPS. When your UPS is plugged into your computer via a USB cable, your desktop now has a battery indicator just like your laptop. This application monitors your computer and when it detects you are not charging and are running off battery backup it sends you an email. The email includes the computer name the version of Windows you are running, whether your AC is On or Offline and what % the battery is currently At.

When power is restored and if your machine is still on it send you a second email saying AC Online and how much battery % you have left. As well as the rest of the information mentioned above.

This application could also be useful on a Laptop that is always plugged into the charger but operates on a shelf with the lid closed (My Quickbooks machine). Then if your charger were to stop working and or became unplugged and your laptop was no longer charging, you would get an email.

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Note: In order for your computer to send out an email when you loose power, your Modem and Router also have to be on battery backup.

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Version 1.0 :

First Release

Version 1.1

1) New UI. Bound to the system tray.
2) Dynamic battery meter with AC status. Timer based updates in addition to PowerModeChanged hander.
3) Threaded email notification.
4) Minor bug fixes.

Simplezz also wishes to give the source code away for free.

Power Notifier 1.1

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59745187/PowerNotifier-App.7z

Power Notifier 1.1 + Source Code

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/59745187/PowerNotifier-Source.zip

Edited by warwagon
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Yes, if it stays off for a long time that could be useful. Actually I like your solution to. That helps me check to see if my internet went down :D

Hmm.. just checked it out and after a trial .. pingdom looks expensive.

Edited by warwagon
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So we have a new version coming soon with we collaborated a brand new UI. I have a sample of the UI below. There are some bugs, which is why i'm not posting the new version just yet. I hope you guys like the new UI.

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Doesn't most ups software already do this?  I can setup all kinds of notifications, email, xmpp, sms, etc..  I get an email and text message when all kinds of things happen via my ups, not just power on or off.  Can setup when alerts go out, etc.. so you don't get a text message at 2 in the morning if you don't want too.

 

 

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Doesn't most ups software already do this?  I can setup all kinds of notifications, email, xmpp, sms, etc..  I get an email and text message when all kinds of things happen via my ups, not just power on or off.  Can setup when alerts go out, etc.. so you don't get a text message at 2 in the morning if you don't want too.

 

The software that came with my cyberpower had notifications, sounds and such but no email. They did support email via their free business UPS software. but it was 150 megs and was WAY more than I needed. All I wanted was Email notifications. Plus by using myphonenumber@vtext.com I can have the application send me a text too.

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I have a cyberpower ups, 2 of them actually...  And yes the business software has always had email.. So what if it was 3GB??

You do understand that download has the agent, the client and server so you can monitor all your upses, or just have a machine listen for the server or agent send it a shutdown command, etc. if a different ups goes on battery and the profile says to shutdown, etc. etc..  Your just using the built in windows tools that report on a ups up or down.. 

Just seems kind of pointless to me, since why would I not run the software that came with my ups, that has alerting features already anyway.

Does your email sending support starttls? How are you storing the password for the email server to send the email?  Looks like just plain text??

<setting name="smtp_pass" serializeAs="String">
                <value />

 

 

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I have a cyberpower ups, 2 of them actually...  And yes the business software has always had email.. So what if it was 3GB??

Sometimes a no bloat single purpose solution is superior to a bloated jack of all trades master of none. I can't comment on the UPS software as I've never used it, but if it's 3GB in size, that seems overkill for a simple email notifier.

Just seems kind of pointless to me, since why would I not run the software that came with my ups, that has alerting features already anyway.

You're entitled to your opinion. It's a very simple and lightweight app, and people are free to customise it for their own purposes. Personally, I like to be able to inspect an app's source code rather than deal with a blackbox that's potentially doing all kinds of things in the background.

Does your email sending support starttls? How are you storing the password for the email server to send the email?

It uses SSL by default:

private void sendNotification() {
    string line     = getLineStatus();
    string battery  = getBattery();
    log.WriteLine("Line Status: {0}, Battery Left {1}", line, battery);

    try {
        SmtpClient client   = new SmtpClient(Settings.Default.smtp_server, Convert.ToInt32(Settings.Default.smtp_port));
        client.Credentials  = new System.Net.NetworkCredential(Settings.Default.smtp_user, Settings.Default.smtp_pass);
        client.EnableSsl    = true;

        client.ServicePoint.MaxIdleTime = 1; // work around for not closing connection

        MailMessage message = new MailMessage(Settings.Default.mail_from, Settings.Default.mail_to);
        message.Subject     = Settings.Default.mail_subject;
        message.Body        = String.Format("{0} ({1})\n{2}: Battery {3}", Environment.MachineName, Environment.OSVersion, line, battery);

        client.Send(message);
        log.WriteLine("Sent notification @ " + DateTime.Now);
    } catch (Exception e) {
        log.WriteLine(e.ToString());
    }
}

But as I said, anyone is free to modify the source code.

Looks like just plain text??
<setting name="smtp_pass" serializeAs="String">
                <value />

Currently yes, but that's not difficult to remedy via sha1/md5 hashing.

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  • 1 year later...

Hi, is there any way to receive a notification only when the laptop battery is low? This app works, but i was looking for one that notifies me when my laptop battery reaches a certain %

Thank you

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  • 4 months later...
  • 2 months later...

Here is an application I created.

Use it at your own risk. Please don't blame me if it breaks your computer or something! :)

 

It will Notify you when you loose power to a laptop and when the power comes back online.

Or you can set it to notify you when a preset percentage is reached.

Can also setup email notification.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4z7kl1bin3ybyyv/PowerNotify.7z?dl=0

 

Hope it helps someone.

 

 

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