For important or safety critical features and services in the smart home (or other buildings), an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is required to ensure that they keep working reliably during very short voltage dips or power outages. They are commonly used with computer systems to also protect the expensive and sensitive computer hardware, which generally needs to be shutdown in a gentle manner.
The contextual smart home provides so many important features (from the security alarm, to assisted living, safety systems, etc.), that a UPS is generally required to ensure it continues to work through these power outages.
Typically a UPS will feature a battery storage system that is charged by a mains powered dc supply and an invertor to convert the stored battery power back to a mains ac supply, in the event of a failure. This is not a very efficient approach though and in our contextual smart home, we have a UPS that only powers devices at 12V dc.
Our UPS is also smart, with real-time reporting and diagnostics linked to our contextual smart home.
Occasionally, our @smartest_home will tweet about the UPS battery voltage.
