My First Electronics Project - Building a Real-Time Power Outage Monitor with ESP32 and Slack

The moment of realization happened in Singapore. I was thousands of miles away from home, enjoying a trip, when I went to check my home CCTV footage through my phone. The screen stayed black. "Connection Failed." The internal monologue of a developer immediately goes to the worst-case scenario: Did the router die? Is there a break-in? Did the server crash? The reality was much simpler, yet equally frustrating: a power cut. The cameras ran on their internal batteries until they hit 0%, leaving me in a complete information blackout. I didn't know if the power was out for ten minutes or ten hours. I promised myself I wouldn't leave for another trip without a "Heartbeat" from my home in Amritsar. The Solution I needed a non-invasive system (no cutting 220V mains wires), resilient to inverter switchover gaps, and capable of sending instant notifications. I chose the ESP32 for its built-in Wi-Fi and low power consumption. By pairing it with a Slack Webhook, I created a device that "shouts" t