CloudWatcher as a watchdog
Being able to use the CW as a watchdog (“watching” PC activity, and closing the relay in case the PC freezes) is a well known CloudWatcher feature, but one happy user, Vincent Steinmetz, just drew our attention to another option:
I just noted some nice unexpected feature in the cloudwatcher.
If the user checks ‘UNKNOWN generates UNSAFE’, the cloudwatcher makes a nice “AC power fail feature”.
No power => No dialog => UNSAFE
It is really interesting for remote.
In our installation the cloudwatcher is on the house supply (not on a uninterruptible power system), so in case of power loss, the computer that operates on a backup inverter gets the UNSAFE event, and closes the dome (closing system is also on battery)
This is important enough to be mentioned in the documentation and advertising.
I discovered this the christmas night, the dome was operating alone, and we loss dialog on everything next morning, power has come again, and I saw the scope was nicely parked, and dome closed because of the cloudwatcher alert script.
You have a nice product there, it is really fine now !
Thank you Vincent, a nice idea indeed!