We’ve got some friends who have two sump pumps. One is a backup and seems an alarm when it is changed on. but this only works as long as they’re home to hear it. [Felix Rusu] came up with a solution what will text him if the sump pump fails. This way he can head home, or phone call someone to check in on the problem if he’s away.

We saw a pretty complicated tracking system back in January. this utilizes a single ultrasonic rangefinder which we think is much simpler. It’s accurate to about 1cm and is simple to use — it’s very popular with the pastime electronics crowd which helps with price and availability of sample code. We hem and haw about the use of a Raspberry Pi board with the project. On the one hand it’s a cheap way to get the sensor on the network and provides the facilities you need to send any number of alerts. On the other hand, it’s a lot of power for this particular application. but we figure it can be prolonged to monitor other utilities in [Felix’s] home, like a sensor to alert him of a leaking water heater. and we think everyone can argue that a monitor such as this is well worth the time and effort he spent to develop it.