@adamselby I found an old reddit post that says they’re esp based so it’d likely be easy to hack them if you’re handy with a soldering iron and esphome/platformio development. Enough to make it worth taking a flyer on them for me as the Lutron Caseta equivalent (which are great) are more like $50ea. I refuse to run any cheap wifi devices on my network that I haven’t been able to hack with my own firmware but all the tuya based plugs and such have been really great deals, especially back when you could hack them over the wifi by hijacking their OTA update procedure.
“Esp32 has security features esp8266 does not have that makes it
almost impossible to run third party firmware on the chip without
replacing the esp32 chip (assuming they are turned on).”
What “is is” is is a verbal speed bump, which might or not slow your subvocalization and comprehension down.
Generally, non-violent; not to be confused with “Isis”.
These things rock. I use them in my mailbox and package dropbox so my stuff doesn’t sit on the porch and get stolen. As a security alarm they would be great but for this function they are fantastic. These work without the subscription. (without as many features.).
Looks like the $5/month plan is not listed anymore on the product page. Price is now $9/m.
Kangaroo Complete
$8.25/monthbilled annually $99
Covers all devices per location, increases homeowners insurance discount eligibility, adds additional premium features.
Security Kits Features:
24/7 Professional Monitoring
$1000 Theft or Damage Coverage
*Alexa & Google Assistant Integration
90-Day Activity History
Homeowners Insurance Discount
Text and Voice Call Notifications
@evangelionhd Why? Have you given the combination/keys to your gun safe to a lot of people? It might be better just to keep it locked and limit access to those you know and trust.
@Trinityscrew to nobody, but motion sensor/wifi alert is actually a feature of higher end safes, so if I get an alert from this $h/t is real and needs immediate attention
@evangelionhd Lithium batteries are expensive, but they last a long time and care very little about temperature. The kangaroo doorbell is hot garbage, but the motion sensors are nice. They can trigger on air movement, and mine certainly have, it’s not joking when it says to not place it near vents.
Which kind of limits usefulness. But if you overlap, the redundancy is nice- Wyze cameras and tinycam on my phone for multiple views at once, motion sensors in areas away from vents, and a couple blink cameras because they used to suck less and I have them. They all have their plus and minus bits, but the weak areas cover each other mostly. A false motion alarm and you check your cameras, if the camera triggers on tree shadows on a window, your motion alarm is good to look at. Blink cameras don’t trigger on TV motion, but Wyze certainly do.
And if all three go off at once, you call the cops.
Back when Kangaroo was new, I ordered a system but returned it when I discovered its Achilles heel; if your Wi-Fi is down, your Kangaroo system can’t communicate with anyone outside the home.
@richrauch A small battery backup can run a router and cable modem a LONG time. And most of the systems throw a notification if it fails a keep-alive for long enough.
@EvilSmoo@kdemoA UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). You basically buy one based on the amount of stuff you plan to plug in. As Evil mentioned, WiFi routers and modems don’t draw a lot of juice, so it doesn’t take much to keep them going.
Now, this keeps the equipment in your house powered, but obviously if something further up the line from you also loses power, it doesn’t help. However, in most cases the company you’re paying ALSO has their equipment on battery backup
I can’t vouch for that NYTimes article, it was pretty much just the first link.
@EvilSmoo@kdemo@smigit2002 Yeah that seems like a silly reason to say something is useless in case of power failure – that is true of almost everything these days. That’s why UPSs as mentioned above help for the short/immediate term. For areas that have extended power outages (either due to storms or fire danger as in CA), that’s why many people spend $5-25K on backup power generators permanently wired to their AC power (not the kind you take outside and pull-start). But as mentioned before a moderate-level UPS can power your internet modem/router for many hours or even a day or two. A backup generator professionally installed will cost about 1000x the price of this deal…
@EvilSmoo@pmarin@smigit2002 -
Thanks so much!
I need this device, power has gone out several times lately.
I found this one, but it says half-load run time is 6 mins. Am I reading that right? Would not really solve the problem. I could replace batteries, but not that often. lol
So you’re not really going to be “replacing batteries” every 6 minutes, the concept is to get a UPS sized to last you for as long as is needed.
(I apologize if you already know the following)
First step is to identify your load: what all do you need to power. Do you have a modem from a cable company? Do you have a router? Is it all one unit? Once you know what you want to power, you need to find out how much power they actually draw. If you’ve got a handy power meter around like a Kill-a-Watt, great! Otherwise, we need to do some quick math.
Look at the AC adapters for whatever you plan to plug in.
In this example, they make it really easy. You’re looking for the part where it says “Input” and then you want to find where it says either the wattage or current (W or A). If it says watts, like this one, you’re done! If it says amps, you’ll have to multiply that number by 120 to get watts, so if it said 0.5A, it would draw 60 watts.
Once you have all the watts your devices will draw, you can go over to Cyberpower’s website where they have a runtime tool:
Enter the UPS you’re looking at, and it’ll tell you how long it will run at various wattages. So in this case, if you were drawing 50 watts, you’d get 25 minutes, but at 100 watts you get 11 minutes, and 200 watts only 3ish minutes.
Then you just decide how long you want it to last, and find the UPS that’ll last that long. For ease of comparison between brands, the “450VA” in the name is basically the size of the battery, so a 900VA UPS would have twice the capacity of a 450 (and likely costs double). There are other battery storage devices sold at hardware stores that they call “generators” that could also serve this purpose, but UPSs are designed to always be on, and automatically flip to battery power, while these “battery generators” would require you to go get it out of storage, plug in your modem and let it boot up. Totally a viable option, just a matter of what you’re trying to accomplish!
Sorry for the novel.
@pmarin I go hard with my backup power. At our last house, we had a natural gas generator installed and it was enough to basically power the entire house, but technically couldn’t simply based on the number of circuits its panel had.
At the new house, I had solar installed. When my wife asked “so that means when the power goes out, we’re still good” and I told her no, she thankfully responded “guess that means we need batteries!” So that’s how I ended up with two Tesla Powerwalls in my basement. For reference, my wife’s an electrical engineer, so she already knew the answer to the question she was asking, it was really to make sure we were on the same page. Generator would have been much cheaper, but we don’t have NG at this house, and I really didn’t want a propane tank.
@smigit2002 - Wow, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that you took the time to educate me.
I guess this explains the vast discrepancy in prices of the UPS units. I would have liked to power a separate router and modem, and possibly a tabletop radio for up to a couple of days. Doubt that’s possible in the $30 range.
Specs
Product Requirements
Apps
What’s in the Box?
Price Comparison
$59.96 at Amazon for 4-Pack
Warranty
1-Year Manufacturer
Estimated Delivery
Friday, Sep 17 - Tuesday, Sep 21
OH MY GOD THEY HID GLEN (VERY POORLY) BEHIND SOME VASES!!!
So this will alert me if a kangaroo gets in the house?
When did Captain Kangaroo jump into home security?
Why am I always the last to know?
If there were a Homebridge plugin I might be in for these…
@adamselby I found an old reddit post that says they’re esp based so it’d likely be easy to hack them if you’re handy with a soldering iron and esphome/platformio development. Enough to make it worth taking a flyer on them for me as the Lutron Caseta equivalent (which are great) are more like $50ea. I refuse to run any cheap wifi devices on my network that I haven’t been able to hack with my own firmware but all the tuya based plugs and such have been really great deals, especially back when you could hack them over the wifi by hijacking their OTA update procedure.
@adamselby @jmpdelos
https://fccid.io/2APSE-MOTION1/Internal-Photos/Internal-Photos-3903605
Definitely an Espressif marker on that chip. Eh, for $5 I’ll give it a go.
@adamselby @jmpdelos @n2o redditor /u/rad_example says the exp32 chips won’t run 3rd party firmware if its security features are enabled.
What “is is” is is a verbal speed bump, which might or not slow your subvocalization and comprehension down.
Generally, non-violent; not to be confused with “Isis”.
@phendrick
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/1998/09/bill-clinton-and-the-meaning-of-is.html
Subscription based BS!??
Alarm monitoring service requires a subscription
Neglected to mention that?
How much?
@craigcush it was mentioned
@craigcush Seemed pretty clear that you can get notifications on your phone for free.
If for some crazy reason you want them to call 911 when one gets tripped then you can pay for that.
These things rock. I use them in my mailbox and package dropbox so my stuff doesn’t sit on the porch and get stolen. As a security alarm they would be great but for this function they are fantastic. These work without the subscription. (without as many features.).
They are not MEH.
@Zott - This is the comment that convinced me to try these.
Meh owes you something good.
@kdemo I hope it works for you as well as it has for me. Stopped my mail theft problem since I now know when the mailbox is opened.
Iftt or alexa compatible?
@audiocontr Amazon page says it needs a subscription plan to be used with alexa.
@audiocontr @braveit1 thank you, this is the only comment that was needed.
Looks like the $5/month plan is not listed anymore on the product page. Price is now $9/m.
Kangaroo Complete
$8.25/monthbilled annually $99
Covers all devices per location, increases homeowners insurance discount eligibility, adds additional premium features.
Security Kits Features:
24/7 Professional Monitoring
$1000 Theft or Damage Coverage
*Alexa & Google Assistant Integration
90-Day Activity History
Homeowners Insurance Discount
Text and Voice Call Notifications
@braveit1 and when heykangaroo.com isn’t listed on the internet any longer, no monitoring?
Batteries will really last for 1 whole year?? They seem great to put inside my gunsafe…
@evangelionhd Why? Have you given the combination/keys to your gun safe to a lot of people? It might be better just to keep it locked and limit access to those you know and trust.
@Trinityscrew to nobody, but motion sensor/wifi alert is actually a feature of higher end safes, so if I get an alert from this $h/t is real and needs immediate attention
@evangelionhd Lithium batteries are expensive, but they last a long time and care very little about temperature. The kangaroo doorbell is hot garbage, but the motion sensors are nice. They can trigger on air movement, and mine certainly have, it’s not joking when it says to not place it near vents.
Which kind of limits usefulness. But if you overlap, the redundancy is nice- Wyze cameras and tinycam on my phone for multiple views at once, motion sensors in areas away from vents, and a couple blink cameras because they used to suck less and I have them. They all have their plus and minus bits, but the weak areas cover each other mostly. A false motion alarm and you check your cameras, if the camera triggers on tree shadows on a window, your motion alarm is good to look at. Blink cameras don’t trigger on TV motion, but Wyze certainly do.
And if all three go off at once, you call the cops.
I’m gonna stick these in my Eucalyptus room to see if the Koalas are sneaking out during the night.
Back when Kangaroo was new, I ordered a system but returned it when I discovered its Achilles heel; if your Wi-Fi is down, your Kangaroo system can’t communicate with anyone outside the home.
That was a deal breaker for me. YMMV
@richrauch A small battery backup can run a router and cable modem a LONG time. And most of the systems throw a notification if it fails a keep-alive for long enough.
@EvilSmoo - Wait, what? I can still have WiFi when power is out? What type of battery backup unit accomplishes this miracle?
@EvilSmoo @kdemo A UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). You basically buy one based on the amount of stuff you plan to plug in. As Evil mentioned, WiFi routers and modems don’t draw a lot of juice, so it doesn’t take much to keep them going.
Now, this keeps the equipment in your house powered, but obviously if something further up the line from you also loses power, it doesn’t help. However, in most cases the company you’re paying ALSO has their equipment on battery backup
I can’t vouch for that NYTimes article, it was pretty much just the first link.
@EvilSmoo @kdemo @smigit2002 Yeah that seems like a silly reason to say something is useless in case of power failure – that is true of almost everything these days. That’s why UPSs as mentioned above help for the short/immediate term. For areas that have extended power outages (either due to storms or fire danger as in CA), that’s why many people spend $5-25K on backup power generators permanently wired to their AC power (not the kind you take outside and pull-start). But as mentioned before a moderate-level UPS can power your internet modem/router for many hours or even a day or two. A backup generator professionally installed will cost about 1000x the price of this deal…
@EvilSmoo @pmarin @smigit2002 -
Thanks so much!
I need this device, power has gone out several times lately.
I found this one, but it says half-load run time is 6 mins. Am I reading that right? Would not really solve the problem. I could replace batteries, but not that often. lol
@EvilSmoo @kdemo
So you’re not really going to be “replacing batteries” every 6 minutes, the concept is to get a UPS sized to last you for as long as is needed.
(I apologize if you already know the following)
First step is to identify your load: what all do you need to power. Do you have a modem from a cable company? Do you have a router? Is it all one unit? Once you know what you want to power, you need to find out how much power they actually draw. If you’ve got a handy power meter around like a Kill-a-Watt, great! Otherwise, we need to do some quick math.
Look at the AC adapters for whatever you plan to plug in.
In this example, they make it really easy. You’re looking for the part where it says “Input” and then you want to find where it says either the wattage or current (W or A). If it says watts, like this one, you’re done! If it says amps, you’ll have to multiply that number by 120 to get watts, so if it said 0.5A, it would draw 60 watts.
Once you have all the watts your devices will draw, you can go over to Cyberpower’s website where they have a runtime tool:
https://www.cyberpowersystems.com/tools/runtimes/
Enter the UPS you’re looking at, and it’ll tell you how long it will run at various wattages. So in this case, if you were drawing 50 watts, you’d get 25 minutes, but at 100 watts you get 11 minutes, and 200 watts only 3ish minutes.
Then you just decide how long you want it to last, and find the UPS that’ll last that long. For ease of comparison between brands, the “450VA” in the name is basically the size of the battery, so a 900VA UPS would have twice the capacity of a 450 (and likely costs double). There are other battery storage devices sold at hardware stores that they call “generators” that could also serve this purpose, but UPSs are designed to always be on, and automatically flip to battery power, while these “battery generators” would require you to go get it out of storage, plug in your modem and let it boot up. Totally a viable option, just a matter of what you’re trying to accomplish!
Sorry for the novel.
@pmarin I go hard with my backup power. At our last house, we had a natural gas generator installed and it was enough to basically power the entire house, but technically couldn’t simply based on the number of circuits its panel had.
At the new house, I had solar installed. When my wife asked “so that means when the power goes out, we’re still good” and I told her no, she thankfully responded “guess that means we need batteries!” So that’s how I ended up with two Tesla Powerwalls in my basement. For reference, my wife’s an electrical engineer, so she already knew the answer to the question she was asking, it was really to make sure we were on the same page. Generator would have been much cheaper, but we don’t have NG at this house, and I really didn’t want a propane tank.
@smigit2002 - Wow, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that you took the time to educate me.
I guess this explains the vast discrepancy in prices of the UPS units. I would have liked to power a separate router and modem, and possibly a tabletop radio for up to a couple of days. Doubt that’s possible in the $30 range.
I learned so much though. You are the coolest!
