Detecting and Stopping Unattended Extenders

[personalt]

I have my remote controls set to menu the sage extenders back to the menu before shutting the TV off but sometimes guests or my wife just hit power on the TV.

If it is one of the TVs we rarely use it can steal one of the sources until I use the web front end and see or reboot all the extenders.

I think I have a back way via CQC but is there any way the extender itself or the sage software can realize that no one has issued any commands to that extender for x hours and assume that no one is there?

[sic0048]

Do you have one extender per TV? Does CQC know the power status of the TVs? If so, the easiest thing to do is have CQC trigger on the power status. When it is turned off, then it stops the extender and sets the GUI to the main menu.

Of course that is a lot of "if"s but even if the TVs are not serial controllable, you can use a current sensor to determine power status. Just make sure you get one with a power trigger value that can be changed by the end user. Since most TVs never turn off 100%, but go into standby, you need to set the current trigger to be above that Standby threshold. That way the trigger is set when the TV goes into standby and not when it goes to 0 power (which would be when it is unplugged).

[personalt]

As of now CQC does not know the power state of the TV. In the living room my media closet uses about 250 watts 24-7 when the TV is on it goes to ~300 watts. It is likely I could track this circuit and figure out when the power drops from over 300 watts to under 300 watts and issue a stop command.

In the dining room though we have a dining room chandler with 8 bulbs in it. That may use more watts then my TV....

I have a basic harmony remote that when you press the off button it hits stop on sage first but from time to time you get that person that just walks over to the TV because they cant find the remote...

Maybe I just issue a stop command at 3am daily to keep rouge boxes from going on for days at a time.

[stanger89]

I would think you could rig something up to have a sensor on the TV itself. I know URC has power/current sensors available for the MSC400 that can do that.

[sic0048]

I was thinking about a small current sensor that you can place directly on the TV's power cord. Something like one of these.



Another option would be triggering off an Home Alarm system (if you have one). So when the house alarm is set to "Night Mode" then CQC could turn off any extenders. Of course this is assuming that you arm the house as one of the last tasks before going to bed.

We do this currently and have it set back our HVAC setpoints and turns off all A/V equipment to save energy.