Use Unifi Network Integration to "Know" if a "Dumb" Smart Pellet Smoker is Currently In-Use

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I’ve got a “smart” pellet smoker plugged into a Z-Wave outlet out back. Occasionally, if I haven’t used it recently, my smoker will drop it’s WiFi signal. When this happens, it makes it so I can’t start the thing up using the phone app to pre-heat for a smoke.

This is something I experience with other smart devices that aren’t so smart as well so it’s not unique to this smoker. As a band-aid fix, I have some of these other “smart devices” that aren’t so smart restart weekly via a turn off/on command of the Z-Wave outlet that they’re plugged into.

I didn’t add my pellet smoker to this automation because having it turn off and then back on at 2:00am would be a very bad thing if I was actually running it for an overnight smoke. The outdoor GE/Jasco Z-Wave plug that I use doesn’t appear to report the electrical usage. If so, I could just monitor this as it would probably be a good indicator if the thing is running or just in standby.

It occurred to me that, since it’s running data through my Unifi network, I could probably use this to automate the power cycle so that it doesn’t run this if the thing has been transmuting data somehow. I currently have my Unifi Protect integration that I use with all of my cameras and such to trigger automations. I don’t yet have the Unifi Network integration because I haven’t had a need for it, before now.

Is anyone using Unifi Network to do something similar that can advise on if this is a viable method or not before I go down this path? I’m not sure I’d use this integration for anything useful on HA so I’d rather not go down this path if it’s not going to yield the data I’d need to create a sort of pseudo state awareness condition for an automation.

Related: I’m also potentially in the market for a new pellet smoker (independent of this) and direct HA integration to avoid these types of band-aid fixes is on the list of wants for the next one I get. I don’t see that anything offers this (at least not with the models on my current short list) so I’d welcome any input from those that have some additional info on this as nothing I’ve researched seems to be fruitful.

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It won’t be if the WiFi has disconnected.

If you are into DIY then fitting an ESP board running ESPHome would be a good control and monitoring solution that would interface nicely with Home Assistant. It would be a lot cheaper than a new smoker ( < $10).

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Does the smoker respond to pings when it is connected to wifi? If so, you should be able to create an automation completely in HA that cycles power to the outlet only when the smoker does not respond to a ping (as in offline or disconnected from wifi)…

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D’oh! Sometimes we miss the simplest of things. That’s why I posted though. If I’m going to invest even $10 I think I’d just get a newer plug that provides energy usage as a sensor. That’s far easier than learning about and standing up a new protocol/controller interface to my system. I’d definitely have more than $10-$30 price difference worth of time invested in standing up a completely DIY ESP system. The other major deal breaker for me is ESP is WiFi for connectivity, unless I’m wrong. I’ve taken some pretty drastic measures over the decades to have as few devices on WiFi as possible to make my life easier so I’m not about to start leaning on it for HA when there’s perfectly good options in the 900mhz spectrum.

I just opened up a command prompt and sent a ping to the IP address of the smoker and it seems to respond. This may be the easiest method and perhaps a better solution than just blindly rebooting my other devices as well. The reactive approach in this case would be better than the proactive most likely since it would be rebooting devices only when necessary. I’ll have to look into this method as I had never thought of it before.

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