[asterisk-users] How to connect a POTS robo alert dialer to asterisk with email notification

[David Smiley]

Hello!

I'm totally new to the world of Asterisk, and so my apologies in advance if my question has been asked before or is in the manual because I'm too new to even know what to search for.

I own a property far-away that isn't inhabited year-round.  I want to come up with a low-temperature alert system so I can be notified that there is insufficient heat for whatever reason (e.g. failed boiler, or ... ?).  There are some systems in the several hundreds of dollars price range that could either hook up to my WIFI to a monitoring service (sometimes with monthly fees), or a cell-phone based one that sends a text message.  Then there are inexpensive ones for about $60 that can hook up to a plain old telephone jack and dial a number with an automated voice to alert the receiver of the problem.  But I don't want to buy phone service to this place just for this device.

So I'm wondering if I could buy an adapter of some sort with a phone port and ethernet port.  An "ATA"?  But then I'm sure it'd need to talk to some sort of VOIP service.  Where I live year-round I have an underpowered build-your-own HTPC computer that stays on the internet all the time and occasionally I access it remotely.  Perhaps I could install asterisk there.  But then I have no idea.  Ultimately I want to get notified somehow (e.g. email) that this phone dialer sent an alert.  Maybe this is more trouble than its worth :-)

~ David