A cautionary tale re: the smart plug

Power & Lighting
1

My wife has an aquarium, positioned right outside our bedroom door. Every morning, I turn on the light and every night turn it off. I got this idea to get a smart plug to set a schedule to do this automatically.

I installed the plug today and everything went great with that. Plugged in the aquarium light, tapped “Off” on the app and of course light went off. Tapped “On” and… nothing.

Turns out the little control box going to the aquarium that has the power button, as well as ones for the brightness and color, reverts back to off if the power is interrupted. So the joke was on me, as you have to hit the power button on the little box anyway to turn it back on.

I still have it set to turn off at night, but will have to continue to do it manually in the morning. Half a win, I guess.

3 Likes
2

I would get a new light

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3

People that believe they can turn their TV on and off with a smart plug quickly discover the same issue. :slightly_smiling_face:

The quick “Will it work properly with a smart plug test” for any device is simply to power it on, unplug it, then plug it back in. If it doesn’t come back on, the answer is no.

Switchbot makes a little device that can manually press a button under app control.

6 Likes
4

Yes, this even happens within the Wyze world – for instance, the floor lamp. Not everything powers back up the same.

5

That was my first thought. I’ll have to clear that with the wife, though. :slight_smile:

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Yep, that’s what I didn’t think of before and what I quickly realized. It’s the reason for my warning for others who might not think of it, either.

7

lol at least it was half a win ! What kinds of fish do you have ?

8

Beta fish, I think. And/or other similar fish. It’s a small tank.

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9

And so there’s no misunderstanding: my post was just a notice for others who might not think about this before buying a plug. It wasn’t a complaint about the plug, itself. It works great, if I had something to plug into it that would cooperate!

10

One of the very reasons that I love my Samsung and Sharp TVs. Remove power and they are off. Restore power and they come back to on position. Some TVs do & some do not.

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I could see that being a negative in some situations. For example, you have a power failure, so you go to be early, and then the power comes back on a 2 am and the TV fires back up. :slightly_smiling_face:

That said, I’ll wager there is also an option in the settings to change that behavior, which would make it a non-issue.

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12

I ordered this yesterday, should be delivered on Thursday. It looks much the same as the one we have, except the power switch is a physical toggle you flip. So hopefully it will work with the smart plug.

ETA: It arrived a day early and it’s installed and works great. Luckily it wasn’t damaged when the Amazon delivery guy threw it onto my porch. I would never have known before I got the Wyze doorbell cam.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T9Y7LQ4/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

2 Likes
13

I had same issue with a grow light. Cutting power to it reset the programming and left it off @ restoration of power.

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14

Here is the switch that LonnieM is talking about. Amazon has it. I haven’t tried it but I have a lot of reasons to get a few.
SwitchBot Smart Switch Button Pusher - No Wiring, Wireless App or Timer Control, Add SwitchBot Hub Compatible with Alexa, Google Home, HomePod, IFTTT Amazon.com