I want to be able to fully power-cycle my v1 SmartThing Hub remotely, but it is plugged into a ‘Network UPS’ that only has 2-prong outlets. So, I can’t use one of my Aeon Labs power switches.
Is there any sort of pluggable smart power switch that only uses 2-prongs?
I did notice this thread, but looking for more.
If you can find one, the Hawking HRAM1 is a Z wave appliance module (not a dimmer) that has only two prongs on the back, no grounding prong.
http://www.hawkingtech.com/downloads.php?file_id=3773
But I’m not even sure they’re even made anymore. You could write the company and ask.
You can still buy them refurbished from their outlet site for $29. Make sure you get the appliance module, not the lamp module
I have a couple of the Leviton switches below which are 2-prong, they may not be what you want since they also support dimming but may work.
I am curious, is this for a v1 hub? I ask because I have a v2 hub and it has batteries in it for backup so turning off the plug is not going to help, I am guessing the v1 hub did not have battery backup. Then again maybe you have a v2 hub and do not have batteries installed.
EDIT: Nevermind, I fully read the post you linked and realized that the solution is to remove the batteries when using a plug, plus since you have a network UPS you have no need for the internal batteries.
This is from today. It’s one of the things SmartThings sometimes does with dimmer switches. The switch is off, but the level keeps cycling between 0 and 99.
For this reason, I can’t recommend a dimmer switch for anything except a dimmable device.
Have you checked your Leviton log to see if it does anything similar?
What about using a plug adapter?
http://m.lowes.com/pd/Project-Source-15-Amp-2-Wire-Single-to-Single-Gray-Adapter/3772899
Call me naive or OCD, but I’ve always been told to never use those on a device that actually has 3 prongs.
I guess that’s why I’d rather find a product that actually only has 2 prongs; at least I make sure I’m using it properly.
I just checked my log and it is empty for the one Leviton dimmer outlet that I have setup, I have a second one but haven’t connected it yet. This dimmer outlet is connected to a standing tiered light with 3 standard LED bulbs (not smart bulbs) and the lights have never come on without me turning them on and they turn off when given the command. This is actually one of the few devices that I have never had to re-pair due to loss of communication like some of my Cree bulbs and various sensors.
I am curious what device handler your switch is using, mine is using the standard “Dimmer Switch” device handler.
I can see how it might be more of an issue if the device you were plugging in to the outlet contained a 3-prong plug, but since the hub has a 2-prong plug I can’t imagine it would be a problem. (I’ve run window air conditioners through adapters without problem, knock on wood.)
Thanks.
In my case though, since electricity and electrical things are not my area of expertise, I try very hard to listen to and follow any and all applicable rules, laws, regulations, as well as advice and recommendations from other, much smarter people and experts in the field (e.g. only buy UL listed stuff, etc). In light of this (again, call it OCD or whatever), it seems like it would be at least counter-intuitive (if not counter-productive) if I were to do something like this (i.e. I’m not wondering if it would ‘work’, but just whether or not I’d still be ‘covered’ if anything bad ever happened that could be in any way traced back to this device…not even saying I have a clue what ‘bad’ thing could happen; just sayin).
So, I will probably just hold off and continue my search until I either find a product that does what I need, or get advice from an expert in this field that gives me the ‘green-light’ for doing it this way.
I may be a little slow, but shouldn’t we be looking for a non-ST controlled switch, to control the power down and power up of the hub? Something like a two prong version of WEMO?
Good point. It all depends on the exact set up.
It’s true that a smartthings controlled switch can’t turn the hub back on, because it can’t receive an on command itself while the hub is off.
But if there’s a device involved that has an automatic restart, or an automatic switch over to battery when mains power fails, it can be done.
So the Z wave switch cuts the mains power to the ups. The hub goes off. The ups shifts itself to battery power. The hub comes back on. The hub Turns the switch back on. The ups shifts back to mains power.
I may be misunderstanding the network UPS that I have, but if power gets cut to the UPS, the hub won’t power off, because the UPS is a UPS (Uninterrupted Power Supply). If the power supply is uninterrupted, how could the hub go off?
…or do you mean that we’d have to figure out how to programmatically send the reboot command to the hub?
Just depends on the exact set up. There are ups which allow for an orderly shut down and a timed restart. So the Z wave switch cuts the power to the ups, the ups switches the battery for however long you have the setting, ups shuts itself down, the ups turns itself back on. That process reboots the hub. Then the hub turns the zwave switch back on, UPS is back on mains.
But different ups have different features.
There are also nonnetworked devices which just reboot themselves periodically on a time schedule, and that might be an option. I know there are some community members using those. So that can be a simpler solution but I’m not sure how the two prong issue fits in.
I guess if I had one thought about this it would be why you need to power cycle your hub often enough that it warrants adding a remote switch to do it? I believe there is a reboot function in the IDE so you can trigger that remotely and I think that would be the same as power cycling but maybe not. If your hub is locking up to the point that you have to physically power cycle I think that would indicate a bad hub as mine has never had to be power cycled, I have rebooted it via the IDE once to see if it would fix an issue I was seeing but it did not.
For me, it’s less about any particular frequency, and more about the context of the need. Like you, I haven’t had to do it much. However, if I ever need to do it (‘it’ being a power-cycle, not just a reboot) while I’m not home, it would only take once to make me wish I had set this up.
I guess the other thing driving this one for me is, if I’m going to have an outlook that says I should automate and integrate and/or generally ‘smarten’ in one way or another everything possible (which I do), then it somehow seems counter-intuitive, in that mindset, to not also somehow automate and enable remote interaction with the power state of the system itself. 
This does bring up a very good point, and something that I had in the back of my mind for some time. I’m looking at introducing ST to a house several thousand miles from my main home- if I see that a ZigBee device has fallen off the grid, the only way to do a zigbee heal is to power down the hub for 15 minutes.
While I don’t expect to be doing this every day, or even every week (of course, given how things have been going…), I do need the security that I can do as much to the box from three time zones away as I could from the same room.
That said, using a three prong outlet with a two prong connection is fine- the ground simply isn’t connected to either side, since the hub doesn’t need it. I can’t believe that a two pronged solution doesn’t seem to exist!
^^^^^THIS^^^^^
p.s. Wow! I only typed 14 characters in my response, and it was accepted. So, did they do away with the 20 character requirement? lol
Guys, the OP is looking for a smart plug with 2 prongs. You can’t just go out and buy 3 prongs plug and eliminate the ground. It’s there for the smart plug. I know this is not the answer you are looking for but how about get a UPS with 3 prongs? You can get one just for the hub and it’s pretty cheap on Amazon and have all the options with smart plug.
Indeed…this may be the wisdom that, although I wasn’t looking for it, I may need to hear.
I only got stuck in my thinking of using the UPS that only has 2-prong outlets because that’s what the hub is plugged into now. I NEVER buy anything on Amazon with less than 4 stars (unless I happen to already know the product, personally), but I will look around and see what I can find.
Thanks!
Just remember you still have the issues that @BadAppleMan brought up – – if you have the smart switch turn off the hub, the hub can’t turn the smart switch back on by itself.
So either the smart switch has to be not controlled only by the hub (like a Wi-Fi pocket socket) or the ups has to have some kind of timer mechanism with a shutdown and restart.
In the first case, the smart switch would be placed between the ups and the hub. In the second case, the smart switch is placed between the mains and the ups.
