Meet Rufus.
Rufus is a very good boy. He sleeps nineteen hours a day, barks at the wind, and once, in 2021, chased off a man who turned out to be the meter reader. He’s been chuffed about it ever since.
In your mind, Rufus has one job: to keep an eye on things. In his mind, however, his existence is limited to deciding how much to sleep between snacks (and occasionally chasing a bird or cat). He has no idea when anything goes wrong in the yard or the wider world, and he is completely at peace with that.
Now look at how many businesses monitor their backup power. The battery sits there, appearing just fine. Nobody’s checked it since the day it was installed. That’s not monitoring. That’s Rufus.
Here’s the problem: a dead battery and a healthy one look identical until you need them. You discover which is which during a power outage, in the dark, at the worst possible moment. When your batteries fail, your security is compromised.
We developed the SmartArx Energy Monitor to eliminate guesswork and ensure Rufus can sleep peacefully as well.
What it actually does
The Energy Monitor monitors your batteries as if you were watching them yourself – if you had the time, a torch, and a multimeter. It independently tracks two batteries and highlights key information.
- Estimated run time, so you know how long they will last when the power drops
- Cycles completed, which reveals how old your battery is in reality (batteries age in cycles, not birthdays)
- Charge and discharge current
- Voltage
- Notifications for discharge started, charge started, charge ended, and battery low
It runs over Wi‑Fi or Ethernet or GSM and updates itself over the air, so it gets smarter without you ever having to climb into the cupboard.
Add an affordable energy meter, and the Energy Monitor tracks your entire site’s power consumption: energy use over time in kWh and real-time draw in Watts. This helps identify unseen loads.
Connect your on-site UPS via the RS-232 port to allow the Energy Monitor to access information such as mains status (input voltage and frequency), output voltage, battery voltage, load percentage, and battery-low warnings.
It also performs scheduled UPS tests, briefly testing the battery to verify it functions correctly or running the UPS on battery power until it reaches a low level. This allows you to assess the battery’s health under normal conditions rather than during a real outage.
The point
Alarms, cameras, and access control all need power. Backup power is usually the one thing nobody keeps track of. The Energy Monitor watches it, tells you what’s healthy and what’s tired, and shows you how much runtime you genuinely have left.
Keep Rufus. He’s lovely. Just don’t be a Smart@** and ask him to do the job the SmartArx Energy Monitor was built for.
Get smart. Get SmartArx.
What does the SmartArx Energy Monitor do?
It monitors two backup batteries independently, tracks site energy usage, and interfaces with your on-site UPS, providing live data on battery health, runtime, and power status over WiFi or Ethernet.
How does it tell me my battery's age?
It counts completed charge and discharge cycles. Batteries age based on how many cycles they’ve been through, so cycle count is a far better measure of age and health than the battery’s installation date.
Can it test my UPS battery?
Yes. It runs scheduled UPS tests, briefly running the battery to confirm it still works, so you find out about a failing battery before a power failure does.