Around Christmas I bought a TP-Link Gigabit power line adaptor (decided that it was easier then running Ethernet to my new office). With it came an offer for a free TP-Link WiFi smart plug. So of course I got one.
It was great for turning on and off the Christmas tree and for making sure it was off when we had all gone to bed. The device is now working quite well turning on/off a lamp in the bedroom.
However these are not particularly cheap to buy.
Now for some reason I have 6 different raspberry pi's from multiple projects so I got to wondering if it was possible to find something off the shelf that would allow me to do something similar.
Well there is and its called an Pi-mote. It can control up to 4 plugs.
I'm using a Pi 3/2 so the there are a lot more GPIO pins then the original Pi (the instructions are for the original Pi) so you have to be careful to plug the board in at the correct end.
USB connectors to the left, HDMI and power to the top.
The little controller board can be seen plugged in on the bottom right.
The above link also comes with a little python 2 script that turns the plugs on/off. I found that I had to increase the 'settle' time to 0.2 for the script to work reliably.
So where am I going with this... well I want to try linking the Pi-mote up with Amazon's Alexa and to then start adding sensors to turn equipment on/off.
It was great for turning on and off the Christmas tree and for making sure it was off when we had all gone to bed. The device is now working quite well turning on/off a lamp in the bedroom.
However these are not particularly cheap to buy.
Now for some reason I have 6 different raspberry pi's from multiple projects so I got to wondering if it was possible to find something off the shelf that would allow me to do something similar.
Well there is and its called an Pi-mote. It can control up to 4 plugs.
I'm using a Pi 3/2 so the there are a lot more GPIO pins then the original Pi (the instructions are for the original Pi) so you have to be careful to plug the board in at the correct end.
USB connectors to the left, HDMI and power to the top.
The little controller board can be seen plugged in on the bottom right.
The above link also comes with a little python 2 script that turns the plugs on/off. I found that I had to increase the 'settle' time to 0.2 for the script to work reliably.
So where am I going with this... well I want to try linking the Pi-mote up with Amazon's Alexa and to then start adding sensors to turn equipment on/off.
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