If you set up octoprint (or any form of networked printing) and don’t mind the horrors of potentially killing an OS (that you can easily reflash and that won’t have an issue if it isn’t a knockoff sd card): I love that my anycubic and its pi running octoprint both just go through a smart plug. When I want to do a print I turn it on from my phone/HA, wait like a minute, and I am good to go with a camera pointed at the print bed for monitoring. And then turn it off when I am done.
Is the smart plug company going to turn it on in the middle of the night? You’ve just moved the problem from one closed, proprietary technology to a different closed, proprietary technology.
Not all smart plugs are proprietary. You could even make one yourself with an ESP-01, a relay, and open-source firmware like ESP Home if you know what you’re doing to make it safe at that kind of voltage. If you’re overconfident in your ability to make it safe, then you’ve still got an untrustworthy smart plug at the end of the process, so it’s not necessarily a good idea, but it’s not proprietary.
I’ve got my smart plugs on Zigbee, through Home Assistant, so they’re not on the cloud. But that did require some research so I could get the right devices, because it’s a bit of a minefield trying to find smart devices that don’t need to be cloud based.
If you set up octoprint (or any form of networked printing) and don’t mind the horrors of potentially killing an OS (that you can easily reflash and that won’t have an issue if it isn’t a knockoff sd card): I love that my anycubic and its pi running octoprint both just go through a smart plug. When I want to do a print I turn it on from my phone/HA, wait like a minute, and I am good to go with a camera pointed at the print bed for monitoring. And then turn it off when I am done.
You don’t even need a pi for this option. I’m running octoprint off an old android phone and it works great.
Yeah but now you have a smart plug in your house.
Is the smart plug company going to turn it on in the middle of the night? You’ve just moved the problem from one closed, proprietary technology to a different closed, proprietary technology.
Not all smart plugs are proprietary. You could even make one yourself with an ESP-01, a relay, and open-source firmware like ESP Home if you know what you’re doing to make it safe at that kind of voltage. If you’re overconfident in your ability to make it safe, then you’ve still got an untrustworthy smart plug at the end of the process, so it’s not necessarily a good idea, but it’s not proprietary.
Hmm that’s a good point. Never seen one for sale that I trusted though, and I did have a good look at one point.
There are many that can be reflashed with open source Tasmota firmware. Sonoff is one of the popular ones.
IKEAs Trådfri plug can be adopted into anything that supports Zigbee. Works out of the box with Zigbee2MQTT. No flashing required.
Don’t use wifi smart stuff. My house uses zigbee, so you have to be physically close to interact in any way. That really narrows down bad actors.
I’ve got my smart plugs on Zigbee, through Home Assistant, so they’re not on the cloud. But that did require some research so I could get the right devices, because it’s a bit of a minefield trying to find smart devices that don’t need to be cloud based.