Network Monitoring With LinkSprinter & LinkLive ~ SmartThings Rescues Scheduling 02Dec24

I used to monitor my home network with a free app from Princeton to check my experiences/data on IoT device performance and security. It was an effective uptime monitor too... though limited. I did share all the data with Princeton so they could aggregate it with others' experiences to make overall assessments. When I got what observations I needed, as described HERE, I deleted the app. I've left my "remote" LAN un-monitored since. Today I'll share how I am again monitoring that network for CenturyLink/Lumen uptime tracking. I'm using a FNet product called LinkSprinter 200. It is small and inexpensive, and reports it's results to LinkLive, a mostly free cloud service, but neither are too programmable. LS does execute a battery of simple tests for PoE, link, DHCP, DNS, and TCP when the button is hit or when it is turned on.

To be a monitor though I needed to find a way to schedule execution of the test suite; LinkLive does not support remote "on" or anything like that. Noting that LinkSprinter executes a test when initially turned on, and noting that it can run off of PoE, I removed the batteries and added a PoE Injector in front of the LS200. And then I plugged the injector into a SmartThings outlet, which is something I could program.

I wrote a weird routine in SmartThings to toggle the outlet, and thereby the PoE Injector, and therefore the LinkSprinter itself, on and off. A test is performed by the LS with every "power on."

Huzzah... I now am monitoring the network and can receive emails with results or just errors/warnings, or I just log in to LinkLive to review result records. I know that the net is down if I don't get a record every hour. Of course it's a bit weird, looking for a negative but this is a free setup and it works fine.