Today's entry ran a little long, but there's a lot of good info here. Hope you enjoy and reach out if you'd like additional details, etc.

TL;DR: In a Memphis-area outage, the real question is not just “Do I have security?” It’s “What still works, for how long, and what have I done to keep the important parts alive?”

Around here, one spring afternoon can start with sunshine and end with the patio chairs auditioning for Twister. That is why power outages are such a useful reality check for both homeowners and business owners.

Because when the lights go out, a lot of people learn there is a big difference between having security equipment installed and having a system that is actually prepared.

Let’s start with battery backup, because that is the quiet hero of the whole conversation.

When house or building power drops, the alarm panel should switch over to its internal standby battery. That battery is what keeps the panel alive long enough to keep monitoring, process sensor activity, and send signals out if the communication path is still there. A common guideline you’ll see in alarm equipment manuals is to replace standby batteries about every 3 to 5 years. Battery life and standby time can depend on the system load. In other words: battery age matters, battery size matters, and how much the system is powering matters too.

That is why a “battery backup” is not really a yes-or-no question. A better question is: How old is the battery, when was it last tested, and what is my panel expected to support during an outage? If the battery is older, running hot, or carrying a heavier accessory load, your real-world runtime may be shorter than you think. A practical homeowner/business-owner habit is to pay attention to low-battery trouble alerts, ask for battery age to be checked during routine service, and not treat a five-year-old standby battery like it is still in its prime.

Next is communication, and this is where people get tripped up all the time.

A lot of folks assume, “My security app works on Wi-Fi, so my alarm must rely on Wi-Fi too.” Not necessarily. For monitored alarm systems, a dedicated cellular path is a big deal because it gives the panel its own route out when home or office internet is down. Alarm.com says its panels use 24-hour battery backup and a dedicated cellular connection so the system can continue to communicate even if broadband or power is lost. That is a very different situation than a setup leaning mainly on the local internet connection.

For cameras and remote video, things can get a little fussier. Video devices primarily consume upload bandwidth, not download bandwidth, and that higher-resolution streaming and features like two-way audio need more of it. So even if your panel is still alive, remote viewing can disappear quickly if your modem, router, PoE switch, or recorder drops out. That is why some people think “the cameras failed,” when the real culprit was the network stack underneath them.

That brings us to the wonderfully unglamorous but very important box called a UPS.

A UPS is an uninterruptible power supply. In plain English, it is a battery backup for the gear behind your gear. A UPS keeps connected equipment running from its internal battery during an outage, and it also helps protect against surges, brownouts, and other ugly voltage issues. Many line-interactive UPS units also include automatic voltage regulation (AVR), which helps correct low or high incoming voltage without immediately switching over to battery. That is useful in the real world because not every “power event” is a full blackout. Sometimes the lights just do that annoying half-blink and your electronics still get rattled.

As for UPS size and cost, this is where it helps to think in layers instead of guessing. One respected manufacturer recommends choosing a UPS with at least 15% more VA capacity than the load you plan to protect. On the consumer side, currently listed UPS options at Best Buy show roughly 450–650VA models in about the $67 to $97 range, while 1500VA/900W class models are commonly around $190 to $230. That means a small UPS may be perfectly reasonable for a modem, router, alarm communicator, or a small switch, while a larger UPS becomes the conversation once you want to keep a recorder, larger PoE switch, or heavier business network gear alive too. Runtime still depends on actual watt draw, battery age, and what all is plugged in, so “bigger box” usually buys you more breathing room.

For business access control, this conversation matters even more. If a building uses mag locks, those locks are generally fail-safe. That means when power is removed, the lock releases. ASSA ABLOY states that if power is removed from a magnetic lock, it will fail safe, and battery backup can be added where continuous operation is appropriate. SDC says the same basic thing for certain fail-safe electric strikes: during a building power outage, they release unless a battery-backed power supply is in place. So if you are a business owner assuming every electronic door stays locked no matter what, PLEASE get 100% confirmation from your door vendor.

Now to smart locks, because this is the question a lot of homeowners ask first.

The good news is that many residential smart locks are battery-operated, so a house power outage does not automatically mean the lock stops working. Schlage says its residential electronic and smart locks continue to function during a power outage because they are battery-operated. The catch is that not all remote features may still be available if communication depends on Wi-Fi or cellular data. In other words, the keypad or local operation may still work, while the “unlock it from the app while you’re at lunch” part may not.

Battery life on smart locks varies a lot by model and by how they communicate. Yale’s support materials show that an Assure Lock 2 with Wi-Fi can be as low as up to 3 months under typical conditions, while the Z-Wave version is listed at up to 9–12 months. That is a pretty good reminder that convenience features and radios cost battery life. Yale also notes that some keyless models can be temporarily powered from the outside with a 9-volt battery if the internal batteries are dead.

So the smart-lock redundancy checklist is pretty simple: keep fresh batteries on hand, do not ignore low-battery warnings, know whether your lock has a physical key override or an external emergency power option, and put the router/hub/bridge on a UPS if you care about remote control during outages. If it is a critical business entry, I would also be very cautious about depending on a consumer Wi-Fi smart lock as the only plan standing between you and a problem.

Bottom line: the best security setup is not just the one with the nicest app or the prettiest camera image. It is the one that has been thought through for battery age, battery replacement, communication redundancy, UPS protection, and what each door is supposed to do when power disappears.

That is the difference between a system that is simply installed… and one that is actually ready for a Memphis spring afternoon.