The sensor I mentioned yesterday failed again today. Fortunately, I had a replacement available from the large supply from our neighbor – the only tricky part was figuring out how to take off the old one and mount the new.

I was afraid I might have to remove the whole thing (which the installers had glued onto the window frame), but I eventually discovered how to detach the sensor from the mounting plate, and then the rest was trivial. Convincing the alarm panel to use the new sensor instead of the old one was slightly annoying (the instructions are written for professional installers, not me), but I finally found the trick (delete the old one first – then add the new one).

When something goes wrong with the alarm system (such as a failed sensor, a low battery, or an intrusion), it calls my cellphone. If I had a modem on the cellphone, it’d send information about what was happening – but I don’t, so it’s like the proverbial Jewish telegram: “Begin worrying. Details to follow.” If I’m at home, I don’t have to worry for long, but if I’m away, it’s a different story. So now I’m in the process of tying the system to Pushover so I can get details – I set up the account, and it should send both of us a weather briefing in the morning. If that all works, I’ll set up the alarm notifications.

Technology has not been our friend for the past couple of days. Soon after we awoke yesterday, our alarm system started going “Ping!” every minute or so. Fortunately, the panel display made the problem clear – one of the sensors had a low battery, and I had exactly one battery of the right kind (123) in hand.

Soon after we woke today, one of the smoke detectors began croaking at us every minute – it, too, had a low battery. And I had a replacement in hand (a standard 9V battery). I decided to change all of the smoke detector batteries at the same time and discovered that I didn’t have enough, so it was off to Ace Hardware to pick up a few.

I changed the offending battery, but when I went to the next smoke detector, I discovered it had expired (they have a 10-year life). So it was back to Ace to buy three new smoke detectors, complete with 10-year batteries that I can’t change; I think I’ll keep the receipt in case the batteries don’t live up to their promise.

And in the meantime, one of our window sensors decided not to tell the alarm that the window was properly closed; I took out its battery for a few hours, then put it back in and the sensor worked. The window is open now – it’ll be interesting to find out if it tells the truth when we next close it.