Alerts

Every alert you can set up, and every way to set it up.

Most questions about an RV have more than one answer. “Did the power go out” can be answered by a surge protector in thirty seconds, by a battery shunt in a minute, or by a thermometer in an hour — and knowing which one you are relying on is most of the skill.

How this works

Pick the question, not the product

Every entry below is a question an owner actually asks. Under each one, the guides list every device that can answer it, what each costs you in delay and in false alarms, and — the part worth the most — which pairs of readings tell you something neither one can say alone.

A surge protector that stops answering means the pedestal died, or it means a van parked between it and your hub. Add a battery shunt and the ambiguity disappears: if the battery is still charging, your power is fine and your Bluetooth is not. That is the shape of the whole cookbook.

Everything here is read-only. RoamVitals watches and tells you. It does not start generators, close valves, run air conditioners or unlock doors, and an alert is not a substitute for the certified alarms your RV is required to carry.

Power

Shore power, battery and charging

The category everything else depends on. Lose power and the fridge, the furnace, the air conditioner and the hub itself are all on a clock.

The shore power went out — six methods, from thirty seconds to an hour
The pedestal is sagging — low voltage and brownouts, the thing that actually kills air conditioners
The pedestal is miswired — open ground, reverse polarity, running high
A breaker tripped — pedestal, rig main, converter or A/C, and telling them apart
The generator started or stopped — and whether the transfer switch did its job
The inverter is carrying the load, or the converter has quietly stopped charging
The house battery is running down — where to put the floor, and how long it leaves you
The battery is not charging — converter, solar or alternator, and which one failed
The battery is draining faster than it should — something left on, or a bad cell
The battery is being overcharged — the quiet fault, and the only one that gets hot
The lithium BMS has cut off, and roughly why
The chassis battery is dying while the rig sits — the one nothing is watching

Temperature

Heat, pets, freezing and the wet bay

Both ends of the thermometer, and the two situations where a late alert is worth nothing.

The air conditioner stopped — and getting told before the temperature moves (see also pet safety)
The inside crossed the ceiling you set for a pet
How fast it is rising — two thresholds and the gap between them
Humidity is making the heat worse — and a running compressor dries the air
The reading is the rig, not the one spot the sensor happens to sit in
The wet bay, water lines or pump are about to freeze (see freeze protection)
The furnace stopped mid-night — and which of its three inputs went missing
The propane ran out before the furnace noticed — it starves before the tank reads empty
The tank heater pads failed — on a switch nobody checks and a fuse nobody knows about
A line froze and burst — or a fitting split on the thaw, which is when you actually find out
The freeze watch itself is still watching

Water and tanks

Leaks, pressure, levels and propane

A plumbing leak under the sink, behind the water heater, at a fitting (see catching a leak)
The water pump is running when it should not be — a pressure drop is a leak you cannot see
City water pressure too high, or the supply cut off
The fresh tank is about to run dry — and whether the water went down a drain or somewhere else
A gray or black tank is about to overflow
The water heater and tank heaters are doing their job
Propane is getting low before it matters (see how much propane is left)
How fast you are burning it, and whether that is normal
The tank will fail you on the coldest night — level plus tank temperature
The auto-changeover regulator flipped to the reserve tank
Whether the propane number is real: reading quality, sensor battery, staleness

A propane leak is not on this list, and never will be. Certified CO and LP alarms have no Bluetooth to read, and nothing we monitor is a substitute for the ones in your rig. What monitoring can and cannot do about gas is the honest length of that.

Security, tires and appliances

The entry door or a window was opened while you were away (see knowing a door opened)
A storage bay was opened — and why the door sensor can honestly miss it
Someone is inside when nobody should be — door and motion together, to cut the false alarms
The rig moved — inference only; nothing we read reports position
A tire is losing pressure, or running over-pressure (see the TPMS guide)
A tire, brake or bearing running hot — heat arrives before pressure does
A slow leak overnight, or while the rig sits
A TPMS cap went silent — dead battery, or somebody took it
The fridge or freezer failed — or a door was left ajar, which looks the same and costs the same
Whether the engine actually ran — bay heat and fuel, which no electrical reading can tell you
The thermostat set point drifted, or the rig is not holding temperature

Air, and the system itself

The air went stale overnight — CO2 in a sealed camper (see why you wake up foggy)
Campfire or wildfire smoke got inside
Humidity high long enough to grow mold — in the cold still corner, not where you sit
The windows will sweat tonight — condensation and dew point
The hub went offline — and whether it lost power or lost internet
A sensor went stale — out of range, out of battery, or moved, and the card already knows which
A sensor battery is running down before it goes quiet (see the coin cell problem)
The campground portal is dropping the hub every day (see the clock it happens at)
The hub goes dark when you drive off — the Wi-Fi you left behind, or a switched outlet

That last group is the one people skip and then regret. A watch that has quietly stopped watching is worse than no watch, because you have stopped checking. Our servers alert on a hub that goes quiet, whatever the reason, and telling power from internet is a question the backlog answers for free. See power and connectivity for what survives an outage and what does not.

Start here

If you set up three, set up these

One temperature alert where it matters — the pet, the wet bay, the fridge. It is the cheapest, and it catches failures no electrical reading can see.

Shore power, if you plug in. It is upstream of nearly everything else, and it buys you the head start the temperature alert cannot.

Sensor stale and hub offline. Unglamorous, free, and the only two that tell you the other alerts have stopped being true.

Then test them before you need them. Unplug the pedestal and watch the alert arrive. It takes a minute and it is the only test that counts.

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