Got myself some energy monitoring Zigbee plugs and made an interesting discovery

[majorllama@lemmy.world]

See I would have no problem with that but the other people living in this house would have a lot of problems with that. Namely the women. I know for a fact me and the other guys would prefer it but the ladies would never green light something that "ugly" lol.

[sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works]

Oh yeah, as a hobby, it's absolutely fun. I like tinkering with all kinds of things.

My point was to just be careful since it's not necessarily going to be worth the expense and time.

I've been considering getting a breaker-level power monitor to watch for spikes. It's a bit more expensive (hundreds of dollars), but it measures the types of things I'm interested in. My kid flipped on our gutter heaters (I never use them) and shot our electricity bill to the moon for a couple months until I noticed. If I had a home energy monitor, I would've noticed a crazy energy spike and that might have paid for itself.

[fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com]

Oh nice. Do you have a link to the plugs you chose? I got some 20amp ZigBees from Aliexpress for $3 each, work great, but I wouldn't trust them to handle their rating.

[fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com]

Depends on the driver. Usually for finicky ones you can do an rmmod at suspend and a modprobe on resume. What distro, and are you using the default suspend mechanism?

[umbrella@lemmy.ml]

yes, i'm on ubuntu, using all the default drivers.

and i would guess its finnicky because its an old laptop.

[lka1988@sh.itjust.works]

Yeah, I never expect a financial ROI for hobbies; the ROI for that is nothing more than my own enjoyment.

[lka1988@sh.itjust.works]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQTFM1T6

[fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com]

Hah, Wyze use the same shell for their WiFi model: https://a.co/d/3kSQaoF

I think these are all based off these ZigBee models at $4 a pop: https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/US-Smart-Home-Tuya-Alexa-Voice_1601241553658.html

[fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com]

There are a couple of ways:

1. Formally add a system entry to run at suspend/resume (like how nvidia does in their driver package)

Or

2. Write a script that rmmods, suspends, sleeps, modprobes, and map it to Cntrl-Alt-Shift-S

I usually do 2 because I like the hotkey method for desktops, and it keeps things the same for both. Also allows me to close a lid on a laptop and leave it on. But 1 is more "formal".

Happy to share some scripts if you'd like, on my phone now, though.

[pulsewidth@lemmy.world]

Yeah I use Linux for my servers and my HTPC, but I never really hibernate or sleep those so I had no idea if it might occur there too. It's great to hear this is not likely to be an issue - thanks

[sinthesis@lemmy.today]

Ok, just be sure it has an integrated circuit breaker otherwise its just....a surge protector. You'll also need to identify what load it triggers at. For example, I use these on my gear https://tripplite.eaton.com/isobar-4-outlet-surge-protector-6-ft-cord-3300-joules-diagnostic-leds~ISOBAR4ULTRA and they're rated to 12A which should protect a 15A rated smart plug. I put rated in italics because errrryone is buying CE (instead of UL listed) smart plugs.

[droporain@lemmynsfw.com]

Did you check the bios?