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Being a techie at heart I decided that I would take advantage of home automation and smart plugs to automate some of the functions of my aquarium. I already had an Amazon Echo Dot nearby so I bought some Amazon Smart Plugs.
I set one up for my CO2 and programmed it to start up an hour before lights on and turn off an hour before lights off. Worked great.
I set another one to turn my pump and integrated heater on and off. One set of commands just did that by voice - on/off. Another routine turned them off, waits for 8 minutes and then turned them back on automatically. This was by voice again and was for feeding so I would not wander off, forgetting to turn the pump back on. I am sure that none of you have ever done that
Everything has worked great for months...until last night when I happened to walk by the tank and saw no water flow. I worked for a couple of hours trying to reset the "smart" plug and research the problem. Things got confusing when I tried a spare new plug and found that it was listed as "unresponsive" also.
I eventually found that all of my Amazon brand smart plugs were offline. More research uncovered that this happens occasionally with these Amazon plugs. Evidently they are dependent upon a server(s) or system at Amazon which on occasion becomes unavailable. While this is not a life changer for a desk lamp it does not work well for our life support devices.
I read that Akasa(TPLink) plugs stayed up when the Amazon plugs were offline. I bought a few of them to try.
I would be interested in any anecdotal feedback on your own use of smart plugs or home automation with your tanks, especially brands that have been reliable.
I set one up for my CO2 and programmed it to start up an hour before lights on and turn off an hour before lights off. Worked great.
I set another one to turn my pump and integrated heater on and off. One set of commands just did that by voice - on/off. Another routine turned them off, waits for 8 minutes and then turned them back on automatically. This was by voice again and was for feeding so I would not wander off, forgetting to turn the pump back on. I am sure that none of you have ever done that
Everything has worked great for months...until last night when I happened to walk by the tank and saw no water flow. I worked for a couple of hours trying to reset the "smart" plug and research the problem. Things got confusing when I tried a spare new plug and found that it was listed as "unresponsive" also.
I eventually found that all of my Amazon brand smart plugs were offline. More research uncovered that this happens occasionally with these Amazon plugs. Evidently they are dependent upon a server(s) or system at Amazon which on occasion becomes unavailable. While this is not a life changer for a desk lamp it does not work well for our life support devices.
I read that Akasa(TPLink) plugs stayed up when the Amazon plugs were offline. I bought a few of them to try.
I would be interested in any anecdotal feedback on your own use of smart plugs or home automation with your tanks, especially brands that have been reliable.