Power Return Alarm, Briidea Utility Power Back on Alert for Generator, Loud Siren with LED Indicator

It works hopefully it will continue to work. So far so good. Installation is simple and like the fact it has a low battery warning. Came with everything needed for installation. Tested it a few times and it worked flawlessly. My breaker box is in a totally different area of the house so when the power comes back on the audio alert is nice and loud and easily heard throughout the house.

easy to wire up and it works as advertised

The media could not be loaded. A very handy device for generator owners to be alerted when the electric service has been restored to your house. The unit emits a tone that the product description claims is 100dB. This occurs once the “antenna” senses the electromagnetic field in the service line. Then turn off the unit to quiet it and then you can safely shut off your generator breaker and then flip your main breaker back on and you’re back on the grid. No more looking to see if the neighbors lights are on etc. my electric panel is down in my garage. The reason I’m only giving it 4 stars is that the sound does not carry as far as you’d think it would be at the claim of 100dB. In order to hear it on the floor above, you have to really listen very hard to hear it. Very loud in the garage!Installation was not too bad. BUT remember, unless the meter has been pulled or the grid is down, even with the main breaker OFF, the lugs that the two hot legs are secured to, are ENERGIZED, and you need to be careful. If you aren’t comfortable, contact a licensed electrician or someone who is comfortable working in an electric panel. The white antenna (wire) is very springy so you’ll need to hold it securely or it will easily unwind. You will need to wrap it very tightly around one of the hot legs before the breaker. At least 4 wraps. Once you have it wrapped secure it with either the supplied zip ties or use electrical tape. I used both. The green wire will need to be secured to the ground bus in the panel. You’ll need to punch out one of the knockouts and feed the wires from outside the panel to inside. Secure it with a knockout clamp to hold the wires in place. The white control box needs secured to the wall near the panel. The unit comes with a piece of 3M two sided adhesive to stick it to the wall or use the supplies wall anchors and screws to hold the mounting bracket to the wall. The box slides up off the mounting bracket, so that you can replace the 2 AA batteries (not included). The face of the control box has a power switch, a sensitivity screw (includes a small screwdriver to adjust the sensitivity) a power light and a low battery light. I’m not sure how long the batteries last, but most times the unit will be off and not in use. Since the service line is energized, even with the main breaker off, you can test your installation to make sure it is done properly. It does seem that if the white tip of tue wire is not wrapped securely and enough times it may not be able to sense the electric files and it will not alarm even if the power is on. Another issue some folks noted is that I’d the two hot legs are too close together, the one without the antenna wrapped around it may “offset” the electric field from the one that is wrapped. So even though the alarm is ear ringing when you are in the vicinity of it, when I’m upstairs, I may rely on my garage camera’s microphone to listen for the alarm. For the low cost and fairly easy (when safely done) installation, this is a great way to know the power’s back on!!Sorry for the long windedness of what was supposed to be a product review but morphed into a hybrid review and installation tips.

Work as advertised. Sensitivity adjustment is required to dial it in.

Living in the mountains is wonderful but not without it's problems. We have frequent disruptions of our power and having a generator on standby is a must. Though once we disconnected from the main power grid and fired up the generator we had to keep checking our power meter to see if the utility company power was back on. This little unit now tells us when the main power is back on so we can switch off the generator and switch the house back over to the grid. The alarm was easy enough for me to install and the alarm is loud enough to be heard anywhere in the house. I figure this unit will eventually pay for itself with all the savings we get by not burning fuel when it's not necessary.

I've turned it on to test it a few times. Really loud. I have a raised ranch with a finished garage underneath the house. 12' ceiling. I couldn't hear it upstairs but when I go down the stairs by the garage door I hear it. The garage is 48' long. And the alarm is in the back. Maybe a baby monitor with this would be good for my situation. I'm positive if it was a basement instead I'd definitely hear it upstairs.

Easy to install. Alarm not loud enough, and no provision for external alarm.Instructions are clear. I took care to tightly wrap just as the briidea image shows.Alarm didn't sound at first, but a small adjustment of the sensitivity got it to work.First time use today during return to power from outage. Alarm sounded, but too soft and too high frequency. And there is no external connection provided. Would have been easy to provide a tone from the box to an external speaker, or a voltage to trigger an external relay. Simple to provide either with a 3.5 mm stereo/mono jack.I had to loosen the screws holding the backplate to the wall, because the box would not slide over the backplate.I remove the batteries during normal power ops, place them in a baggie near the alarm. That way, I don't worry about batteries leaking in the box. Easy enough to place them in the box during an outage.I need to figure out how to get a better indication from the box OR find another box. This one works as advertised, but not thought out completely.

The power return alarm was extremely easy to install and so far seems to be good quality. When tested the audible alarm was quite loud making it easy to know when the power returns.