Smart outlet connected by wire (instead of wireless)?

Hardware
1

Are there any smart plugs (electric power outlet) that can connect to Home Assistant by wire (e.g. USB cable) instead of by wireless?
I have an odd use-case of a HA server inside a metal network panel box, and the Wifi, Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Bluetooth antennae are all mounted outside that box (as its essentially a faraday cage). I’d like to control a smart plug inside that box. This will be to power-cycle the residential cable modem if it loses internet connectivity. Typical smart plugs with wireless connectivity would not work well in this case, so I would be better off with something hard-wired (or move all the ugly plugs and power cables outside the box).
Thanks for any points in the right direction.
Ari

2

If you can get a digital output from your server you can try to pilot a dumb relay, the server ouput can then toggle it. Not an eletctronics guru here, so some kind of circuitry could be needed to convert the digital output to a relay toggle…

3

I’ve done similar with a relay to interconnect wireless smoke detectors (e.g. z-wave out in the shed or up in the attic) with my house smoke detectors (First Alert, wired). Wasn’t hard to do.
Would like it if there was an already made solution, though.

4

I’ve noticed a significant drop of DIY in these forums. Building such a smart outlet would be pretty trivial using an ESP device.

@wrongisthenwright is on the right track. But rereading your question… Have you even tried using a smart plug inside the box? If the Home Assistant host is also inside the box, I don’t think it will be an issue because there will be so much RF leakage from the host PC that you will get RSSI values in the -30 range.

I have Zigbee temperature sensors in my two refrigerators (one in the kitchen and one in the office) that are 10 to 15 ft from the nearest Zigbee router, and they have good signal strength even inside the refrigerators.

Try it.

5

If you have Ethernet in the cabinet then a DIN rail Shelly Pro would work.

1 Like
6

Why not run a smart plug on an outlet located outside the box, with an extension cord running from the smart plug into the box?