Power on OGLAS — Off-Grid Local Alert System

Power Management

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Power management sensors read the system that keeps everything else running: your solar and battery setup. They’re sensors like any other in OGLAS — they measure something off the world and report it — but what they measure is power production, battery state, and load, and they make it available to your hubs, your dashboards, and your smart switches.

The first of these reads a Victron MPPT.

Victron MPPT

If your power comes from solar — most off-grid sites — the Victron power-management sensor pulls production data into the same dataset as everything else.

Engine

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

An engine that never moves still wears out — and the backup generator nobody logged is the one that won’t start when you need it. The OGLAS Engine sensor brings the Vehicle Track run-log to fixed engines: generators, pump engines, compressors, anything that runs in place.

What it does

Detects runs — from the engine’s accessory output, a vibration sensor, or current on the load. Every run is logged with start time and duration.
Counts hours — accumulated run-time per engine, so service intervals are by hours, not by a date someone guessed.
Trends battery and starting — for engines that fail to crank, the battery is usually the culprit; trend the voltage and you’ll see it coming.
Flags exercise gaps — is the backup genset actually being run monthly, or has it sat idle since spring?
Raises service alerts — hours-since-service past the limit rings the bell or pushes a notification.

Why it’s its own sensor

It shares the run-log engine with Vehicle Track — the difference is the trigger and the fact that GPS doesn’t move. For anything with a cab and a journey, use Vehicle Track; for a genset bolted to a slab, use this.

Smart Switch

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The OGLAS Smart Switch is the active end of the network. Where the other sensors measure and report, the Smart Switch acts — turning a load on and off based on conditions you’ve defined, and reporting back not just whether it switched but whether the load is actually working.

What it does

A Smart Switch decides whether to be on or off using one or more of:

Power-management data — reads incoming watts, battery state, and load from a power-management sensor (e.g. Victron MPPT). Run the relay on stable solar surplus.
Sensor data — subscribe to readings from other OGLAS sensors. Tank dropped below 200 mm? Soil moisture below threshold? Battery bank above 90 %? React.
Web / API data — when Wi-Fi is available, pull from a local server, MQTT broker, or HTTP endpoint. Used for off-property triggers that need external data.
Weather data — forecast and current conditions from a weather API. “Run only when the next 6 hours are clear” is one rule that uses this.

Multiple inputs combine with AND/OR rules in the device config. None of this requires a cloud account — see Your data is your data.

Power Monitoring

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Power Management reads your solar charge controller. Power Monitoring reads everything else — because plenty of off-grid power doesn’t come from a Victron MPPT.

What it does

Reads any source — mains feed, generator output, a battery bank via a shunt, or an individual circuit. AC or DC.
Measures voltage, current, and energy — instantaneous draw and accumulated kWh, per source or per circuit.
Finds the hogs — which load is quietly eating your battery overnight, and which circuit’s draw is creeping up.
Logs locally — every reading to your hub in open formats, no utility portal — see Your data is your data.

Hardware

Current transformers (AC) or a DC shunt feeding an OGLAS node, sized to the circuit. Multiple channels for a switchboard; a single channel for one load.

Off-grid power

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

If your site runs on solar or batteries, every sensor’s power budget matters. OGLAS sensors are designed to spend most of their life asleep, and only the devices that need to listen continuously stay awake.

Battery sensors

The analog node and most “report a reading every minute” sensors:

Run on a single LiPo cell (3.7 V, 1000–2000 mAh is plenty).
Deep-sleep between samples — current draw drops to microamps.
Wake, read, send, wait for confirmation, sleep — the whole cycle is under a second of activity per minute.
Survive a full season on a charge for typical reporting intervals; longer with solar trickle.

We select hardware specifically for ultra-low deep-sleep current on battery-powered sensors. Slightly higher-power variants are available for always-on devices — pick the one that suits your install.