The situation is I have an older, non smart tv in the basement that doesn’t have an inactivity time out and the kids leave it on all the time…
What I seek is a way to solve this through SmartThings…
My thoughts are a zwave or ZigBee plug that I guess would have to have energy monitoring… so it could detect if the tv has been on for more then let’s say 3 hours. If so it would turn off, but turn right back on (not the tv, just the plug)
I realize I can set any plug to simply turn off after 3 hours but that means the tv wouldn’t simply turn on when someone presses the remote, they have to run the plug back on first which is a big hit on convince in effort to get that energy savings which would annoy the wife and kids!
If the plug can turn off momentarily but then right back on this should have the desired effect of turning the tv of but making it immediately ready to be turned back on through normal means…
Anyone have any ideas on which smart plug in should use and how to set up the functionality?
That’s totally doable. A lot of plugs that work with Smartthings also report the current power draw. Here is one:
I believe the new Smartthings app has a basic rules engine in it so you can set up your logic. If you’re using the old app, you’ll have to use WebCORE or some other rules engine. Not too difficult either way.
But one thing to check: Does your TV really stay off when you unplug and replug it? Both of our TVs will restore to their last state when they regain power. So if I switch my plugs off and then back on again, the TV will just momentarily turn off and then boot right back up again.
Damm, you’re right. The tv turns back on when plugged back in… so I guess I’m just up a creek without a paddle unless I buy a new tv… which seems a little wasteful just for the kids to watch cartoons on in the basement.
I picked up a harmony hub (without the remote) and integrated that for other purposes… but you should be able to use it to turn off your TV by sending an IR command.
Yea I have a harmony hub, I haven’t installed it in that room yet. But I’ve been meaning too. The kids however tend to just turn on the tv with the panel button. So it’s not like I can just end the harmony activity like I do with the upstairs tv’s (they’re all set to turn off when I say goodnight or goodbye etc).
I suppose I could use it to manually turn the tv off without physically going downstairs though… providing I know it’s on… I guess I could use am energy sensing smart plug only to trigger an alert that it’s on and then use the harmony hub to turn it off…
Could i automate that through ifft maybe? Smart plug senses tv is on for more then 3 hours issues turn off command to harmony hub?