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Americans are in the Dark on Power Outages. Ting Just Changed That.
Power outages strike more than 230,000 times each year across the U.S.1, often without warning, cutting off cooling or heat, medical devices, internet, and other essential services. Starting today, Americans have a new way to stay informed during these critical moments. Whisker Labs announces a transformative update to its Ting app: for the first time, real-time, hyper-local outage alerts are available to anyone in the U.S. – completely free. The Ting app now delivers instant notifications, neighborhood by neighborhood, when the power goes out or comes back on, giving households the visibility they’ve never had before. This milestone marks a major shift in how people stay informed during outages, bringing reliable updates together in one place when the grid goes down.
The Only Nationwide App for Precise Power Outage Alerts
When the power goes out, everything changes. Refrigerators stop cooling, medical devices shut down, internet and communication are lost, and comfort disappears fast. Power outages aren’t just inconvenient – they’re a serious risk for millions of Americans. Knowing the moment the power fails can make all the difference.
Ting is the first and only consumer app offering real-time, neighborhood-specific outage alerts with precision and nationwide coverage. While utility apps and outage maps often lag or go dark during grid disruptions, Ting delivers precise, reliable alerts made possible by its sensor network with coverage within one mile of 95% of U.S. homes.
“There’s never been an easy, accurate way for people to know exactly when the power goes out,” said Bob Marshall, CEO and co-founder of Whisker Labs. “With this update, Ting becomes the first app to deliver real-time alerts to any home, for free. It’s a simple tool, but it fills a major gap in how we stay informed and safe when the grid goes down.”
The updated Ting app includes these powerful, free new features:
- Free Real-Time Power Outage Alerts: Know the moment power goes out in your neighborhood or at a place you care about most.
- Interactive Outage Map: Zoom around a live, nationwide map of outages and explore power events near you, so you can prepare.
- Save a Location That Matters: Add your home or a place you care about.
- Optional Fire Prevention Upgrade: Add a Ting sensor to unlock personalized power quality alerts, in-home hazard detection, and expert-guided fire prevention.
The Grid System Under Pressure
Extreme weather and aging infrastructure are pushing the U.S. power grid to its limits. Ting’s nationwide network reveals a troubling trend: grid resilience is weakening as grid faults become more frequent. Faults per home per month doubled between January 2022 and June 2024. Further, an analysis of U.S. Department of Energy data reveals that the frequency of major power outages almost doubled over the past two decades, leaving millions of families in the dark each year.
Last July, Hurricane Beryl left over 2.2 million Houston-area residents without power, with no reliable source of outage information from the local utility. The Whataburger fast-food app became a crowdsourced solution, as locals checked which locations had electricity. This clever workaround exposed a deeper problem: Americans lack consistent, trusted access to outage information when they need it most. Now, Ting offers a better way.
Meet the New Ting: Fire Prevention + Power Outage Alerts
While this update marks a major leap forward in power outage awareness, Ting has always been about helping people stay safe and informed. At its core was a bold question: what if we could detect electrical problems before they became disasters? That idea became a mission after tragedy struck close to home, when Marshall’s family member lost her house to an electrical fire. The hazard went undetected. Ting was created to change that.
Today, by protecting their own homes, the Ting community has helped build a system that benefits everyone as Ting monitors the safety and reliability of the U.S. electric grid. While Ting users gain advanced fire prevention available only through the sensor and service, this latest app update makes real-time power outage insights available to any household, no sensor required. It’s a meaningful step toward making grid awareness and power outage safety accessible to all.
Join the 1 Million Families Who Already Rely on Ting
The sooner you know the power is out, the sooner you can protect what matters: your belongings, your comfort, your safety. From storms to equipment failures, Ting power outage alerts gives every home a smarter way to prepare for outages, respond faster, and prevent small disruptions from becoming bigger problems. Join the more than 1 million people already part of the Ting community, and discover how Ting can help protect your family and home.
Download the free Ting app today on the App Store or Google Play.
1 U.S. Energy Information Administration. (2023, September 13). Power outages continue to be shorter on average but more frequent for U.S. electricity customers. Retrieved from https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=61303
