Ejitelkahraba | إجت الكهربا

Ejit El Kahraba (إجت الكهربا) is a community-driven IoT platform built to monitor public power grid availability and private generator status across Lebanon. In a country where electricity outages are frequent and unpredictable, residents constantly need to know whether power is on in their specific neighborhood, when to expect generator subscriptions to kick in, and how to plan their daily lives around fluctuating supply. This project was initiated by the Akkar Media team as a community cooperation effort, with the goal of giving every Lebanese household real-time visibility into the power situation in their area.

The system is built on a distributed network of microcontrollers deployed across stations covering different regions of Lebanon. Each microcontroller monitors the electrical state at its location and pushes real-time signals over MQTT, a lightweight IoT messaging protocol designed for low-bandwidth, intermittent connectivity, which is ideal for Lebanon’s challenging network conditions. These signals are aggregated by a central backend that determines power status per area and triggers instant notifications to subscribers.

The web application, designed in Arabic with a clean light-themed interface, allows users to select their town and region and immediately see the current grid status. When public power or generator supply switches on or off in a subscribed area, the platform pushes a notification so residents can react instantly — whether that means starting the laundry, charging devices, or knowing when to switch over to the private generator. The project remains in active development, with ongoing enhancements to the IoT hardware layer, MQTT infrastructure, and web application features.

Key Features:

• Distributed IoT Network: Microcontrollers deployed across stations in Lebanon, each covering a specific geographic area for granular, hyper-local monitoring.
• MQTT Real-Time Messaging: Lightweight pub/sub protocol delivering low-latency power status updates, optimized for unreliable network conditions.
• Town & Region Selection: Arabic-first web interface letting users drill down to their exact locality and see live grid and generator status.
• Subscriber Notifications: Instant alerts when public power or generator supply turns on or off in subscribed areas.
• Dual Source Monitoring: Tracks both the public electricity grid (EDL) and private generator subscriptions, the two power sources every Lebanese household depends on.
• Community-Driven Model: Built as a cooperative initiative by Akkar Media, with the platform openly serving the public interest rather than as a commercial product.
• Continuous Development: Active roadmap of IoT hardware improvements, expanded station coverage, and web application enhancements.