I like to have a functioning and automated home-electricity, home-electronics and home-computing environment. Each year I have a small home-project to expand my environment.
I'm using the following home-electricity equipment:
- Dimmer systems for automatic lightening of home entrance area
- Interconnection of garage door with lightening to automatically turn on / off lights
- I2C radio power sockets
- ...
I'm using the following home-electronics equiment:
- LAN cabeling in all living rooms, front house area, back house area and garage
- LAN switch and a patch-panel in a 19'' rack
- Power over ethernet (POE)
- Viideo monitored entrance area
- ...
I'm using the following home-computing environment
- Low cost PCs with Linux OS for WEB-server, Firewalling, File-Store, Multimedia
- APC UPS-Systems for uninterruptable power supply
- Destop PCs running Windodws XP and WIndows 7 with 26'' LCD displays
- Apple Laptop systems running Leopard
- Windows 7 Laptop systems
- DSL Modem
- Wireless Access Points of type b/g/n (11/54/450 Mbit/s)
- ...
I recognized quite late that I really have a need for an uninterruptable power supply (UPS-system). I had a DSL-Modem with a cheap power supply. This modem is quite sensible to changes in the voltage. Therefore I decided to buy an APC Back-UPS ES 700. I've chosen this system because of its small price and the support of Linux for status reporting over the USB-interface.
I give you a small impression of the latest status report from the UPS about my home electricity:
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Sun Oct 03 02:55:25 CEST 2010 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sun Oct 03 02:55:24 CEST 2010 Power failure.
Sat Sep 11 19:12:27 CEST 2010 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sat Sep 11 19:12:25 CEST 2010 Power failure.
Sat Aug 21 15:46:53 CEST 2010 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sat Aug 21 15:46:51 CEST 2010 Power failure.
Sat Aug 21 15:42:05 CEST 2010 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sat Aug 21 15:42:03 CEST 2010 Power failure.
Sat Aug 21 15:39:36 CEST 2010 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sat Aug 21 15:39:34 CEST 2010 Power failure.
Sat Aug 21 06:56:04 CEST 2010 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sat Aug 21 06:56:02 CEST 2010 Power failure.
Sun Aug 15 03:07:07 CEST 2010 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Sun Aug 15 03:07:05 CEST 2010 Power failure.
Fri Aug 13 22:53:30 CEST 2010 Power is back. UPS running on mains.
Fri Aug 13 22:53:28 CEST 2010 Power failure.
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I'm really surprised how often a power failure is occuring.So the power outage is in my case always for approx two seconds. For many electronic systems this duration is already too long and it is enough that i.e. you satellite receiver reboots.
After implementing UPS-systems I'm understanding the high shift in the availability of my home-automation electonics. 
Great events often come from little causes. 
