Room power "buses" idea

Hardware
1

For me this idea started in my “man cave”, office, study, lab, computer room, gaming room, teenager room, whatever you wanna call it.

I have a load of electronic equipment be they monitors, speakers, PCs, external hard disks, clocks, electronic bench power suppliers, microscopes, and so on and so forth. More than a dozen things plugged in.

Some of it I would like the option to keep running 24/7 if I want to, such as PCs, clocks, Wifi router, network switch… but a whole lot of it I want to power off when I leave or go to bed. It is a pain switching everything off or just leaving it on / in standby.

So I run two power buses. If you are afraid of chaining multiple 4 way power bars together, you probably should stop reading here :slight_smile:

In my present abode the office has two power sockets one near the door the other behind the computer desk . So I run two chains of 4 way power bars around the skirting boards to strategic points. The “Primary” or “Essential Bus” (to borrow from aviation) is powered from the inaccessible socket behind the computer desk. The “Secondary” or “Non Essential” is powered from the socket near the door.

When I get up to leave the office for a while I just reach down and flick that switch as I leave. It immediately takes out:

  • The lights (corner uplighter, spot and magnifier lamp)
  • Computer monitors and speakers
  • Electronics bench supplies (and is thus doubles as an Oh shi… switch)
  • Basically everything that I don’t want to leave on

It thus leaves the PC, the server, network switch etc. running.

Now I have discovered automation and things like SOnOffs I was thinking of …

  1. Moving this feature to the living room (and other rooms) as well.
  2. Adding a wall switch beside the light switch to control the secondary bus(es).
  3. Tying it all together so I can with a single press switch all rooms to “essential power only” as I leave the house. Or automate is to do so automatically… although I could see false positives would be extremely irritating, plunged into darkness…

Things to consider are the power rating on the smart switches, but as they are automated they can be grouped allowing for more than one switch per bus in a given room.

The advantage is that it doesn’t require actually wiring or getting the electrician out and most people already have clumps of 4 ways behind the TV etc.

2

Some guy built a sonoff controlled power strip.

I currently do it like this, that a short press turns off the light in the room and a long press turns everything im the room off (except for devices I want to stay on). When everyone left the house it turns off all the devices incl. lights in all the rooms.

3

Interesting. I suppose when it comes to automated things you don’t need to stop at 2 buses, but can have groups of things. Things can be in more than one group as well. I suppose it just comes down to how many automated switches you want to have.

I didn’t check the git hub link, but I would imagine a Wifi 4 way independently switched power bar would be very useful :slight_smile: I’d probably need 10 of them and I could do the whole house. :smiley:

4

I just checked the link in detail and it’s actually just a ready-to-buy product taken apart and explained a bit :smile:

https://www.gearbest.com/smart-power-socket-plug/pp_009407302242.html

But I think this should be easy do to it yourself for you :wink:
The product in the link even allows individual control of the attached devices, not just on/off for the whole strip.

5

If we could put a 4 way energy monitor in there I think we’d have a super product :slight_smile:

The trouble is I have heard mixed reports on how effective basic power monitors are. The simple current clamp variants are dubious as they don’t measure voltage or sense phase/frequency. They can’t provide true/real/reactive power. But… indicative is better than nothing. Accurate to ± 15% is enough?

There are SOnOffs with energy monitoring, aren’t there? Might be worth a look into how well they do that.

How much development effort is there is a 4 way independently monitored and switchable power bar? Sounds like a fun project to find out.

6

Yes there are Sonoffs with energy monitoring, e.g. Sonoff POW R2.

I think it’s a good idea that youtest this. Afterwards you can provide your final solution here so I can copy it and use it myself hahaha
I’m actually really in the need of something like this soon, the one wifi power plug I have costed me 50 bucks!!! It’s the only one available for the power socket we have here and I sure as hell won’t spend more than 1000 bucks for some “smart power plugs” :stuck_out_tongue:

7

Putting aside the power monitoring, there are plenty of power boards on the market that work via RF remote. Those can be switched by HA, but of course the lack of feedback means they are “optimistic” at best. However it is a cheaper solution.