A good friend of mine has a ranch near Roosevelt Tx. It's a game ranch & he doesn't live there full time. He has several cabins & a barn. Of course there are wells, freezers, frigs, heaters in well houses, etc. There are not many neighbors around so when PEC power goes out they don't get called until someone discovers it. He's had a disaster power outage once & several close calls. PEC says they have new meters that they can use to remotely detect power down, but they don't work or have other excuses. They are good at apologizing to the customer!

My question: Is there a device that can call/text a cell phone & say power is down & for how long & when its back up? He doesn't have internet where he's at but he uses cellular game cameras.

TIA....

Point a camera at a light bulb in the most important building.

The expensive approach could be to buy a standby generator. New ones, I believe, will send a message when the unit is running and for how long. A cell signal/message to your smart phone would happen. Of course, that’s a bit more money than aiming a camera at a light bulb.

There are devices that work on a cell signal.

This might be worth checking into. I see no mention of it but a subscription to a cell provider would seem necessary. I would also contact the manufacturer to see if they offer a unit that uses 4G or 5G since GSM's days appear numbered.

Lots of power detection systems available. The key is one that reports through a means that doesn't require power.

Link

No clue or help on the device you are looking for.

On a somewhat similar subject, our neighborhood gets a lot of power surges, sags which has effected our appliances and settings.

We had a whole home surge protector installed and man does it make a difference, wish we would have done it 27 years ago

This is the one we had installed.

Siemens FS140 Firstsurge Power Total Home Surge Protective Device, 140,000 Amps Surge Spike Capacity.

There are, but these type of 'watchman alert' systems can also fail, especially when the power fails and their battery fails when needed (due to years on 'standby' and not needed), or can't get a cell-signal when local-area power failure happens.
They are NOT foolproof.

Only foolproof type of system is one that regularly polls or regularly 'checks-in' to a remote 'monitoring' station that can independently send alerts directly to concerned individual.

I have a SimpliSafe system in my house that alerts me to a power outage within seconds and also alerts me when the power returns.

The system requires access to a cellular site plus a monthly charge somewhere between $10-15. Cellular is provided as part of the monthly charge so you don't need a separate cell phone account.

I think Ring and Google have similar systems.

If he wants he can add other alarms and cameras to these systems.

hire a hand to stay there?

Our Alarm.com monitoring includes notifications of power outages. We will get the power failure email, they a second one when the batter runs down.

Just under $20/month.

I'd like to get paid to watch a light bulb.