A Small Alarm for the UPS [/ə ˈsmɔl əˈlɑrm fər ðə ˈəps/] n - A small bespoke device that makes a Raspberry Pi into a physical alarm panel for UPS events. It weds the UPS network management card, a handful of GPIO pins, and a buzzer, so that a power trouble cannot go unheard upon a noisy floor.

Why a Bodily Alarm Avails

A UPS can send SNMP traps and email, yet in a loud data hall such notices are easily lost. A bright lamp and a loud buzzer beside the operator’s desk cut through the din and tell the severity at a glance.

What You Want

• Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W (or any Pi with Wi-Fi and GPIO)
• Active buzzer, 5 mm red LED, and a 220 Ω resistor
• Small breadboard or a prototype PCB
• A UPS with a network management card (SNMPv1/v2c or v3)
• Python 3 and the pysnmp library

Of Its Working

The Pi polls the UPS every few seconds for the estimated runtime and the present alarm state. Should the runtime fall below a threshold, or the UPS report a battery or bypass alarm, the script sounds the buzzer and flashes the lamp until the alarm is acknowledged.

The same script may be extended to publish metrics to a local monitoring stack, or to log events to a central syslog server.

What Remains to Do

• Build a small enclosure with the buzzer mounted without.
• Add a mute button upon another GPIO pin, so the operator may acknowledge the alarm.
• Feed the alarm state into a Slack or Teams webhook, for those off the floor.

This is a quick Crafts project that pairs well with the Uninterruptible power supply note.