My boat winters indoors where solar isn’t available. Neither find is shore power to keep batteries charged. Even my Balmar SmartGauge will draw them down in weeks. While I may not need monitoring, I’d love to know what the temperature is aboard. Anyone have a solution for that?
Lots of ways to skin this cat. I’m sure I’m repeating myself but I use SmartThings. Dirt cheap and highly reliable/expandable, although not as tailored to boating as Siren (which I’d probably have installed if I’d known about at the time).
I monitor ER temps/motion/lumens, saloon temps, smoke alarm actuation and turn heaters and lights on and off as needed. I’m guessing ~ $300 in the entire system. I also use Wyze IR cameras which remotely pan and zoom, detect, record and alert me to intruders and listen to what’s going on in the ER and saloon (~$40/ea). I can even tell an intruder that they’re being filmed and the police are on the way, via the cams.
If I get an alert from SmartThings, I put eyes on the boat via the cameras. Normally, our bilge is bone dry, so if a drop of water hits the moisture sensor, I get a text and check the camera to make sure it’s nothing serious. Likewise with the smoke/CO alarms. We’ve had two false alarms since installing a network of smart smoke detectors. I can listen in to what’s actually happening on the boat via the cams and, if the alarms have stopped, be pretty certain it was spurious . . . maybe a smelly boat passing too close. We also have NEBO aboard, which alerts me to any suspicious boat movement and if battery voltage drops below a pre-set minimum.
Except for (I believe) NEBO, all this requires WiFi and our marina’s system is the pits. So I installed a Pepwave router that switches seamlessly from marina WiFi to cell and back—with a preference for the marina when it’s up and running—creating a strong network on the boat.
Not denigrating the integrated boutique systems at all. They’re convenient and elegant. My approach evolved piecemeal and does pretty much everything I need.
Edit—Oops, just reread your post and the power issue finally penetrated. Probably a stupid question, but can you run an extension cord? Is there WiFi in the storage facility you can connect to?