Show: Start pc via HomeAssistant

[30cl]

Hey all,

I was working on a small DIY project to turn on/off my PC over the network with Home Assistant. My game PC is upstairs and I'm using a RPi4 with moonlight to play in the living room.

In My pool leaked and killed my computer Linus said he is still not able to turn on/off his PC's for the game room. So I decided to share the project her. Maybe it can help someone:

 

https://github.com/30cl/remote-pc-power-on

 

I used a WeMos D1 clone (a ESP-8266 based micro controller), connected to the WiFi and the motherboard. It can detect if the PC is on, and toggle the power/reset buttons. The badly soldered first working prototype and the Home Assistant panel look like this:
 

 

Hope this helps anyone.

 

[manikyath]

that's a lot of transistors, but probably a very safe design and it's probably not worth the engineering cost to slice the BOM down.

 

i might get myself involved with this one and make something that can address multiple systems, so you dont need to stick a device on your wifi per computer.

[30cl]

Its 2 per button, I did try with a single one, and did not get it to work.

If you only care to toggle the power, 2 transistors and a single resister would be enough.

 

If you place it outside the case, and some modification it could easy handle multiple system.

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, 30cl said:

Its 2 per button, I did try with a single one, and did not get it to work.

If you only care to toggle the power, 2 transistors and a single resister would be enough.

 

If you place it outside the case, and some modification it could easy handle multiple system.

driving them with 10k resistance from 3v3 might be a bit too optimistic. with 1k you might not need two.

 

and for talking to multiple systems i'm pondering either dedicated inputs (there's plenty of pins), a multiplexer, or a 4-bit IO expander and just have i2c to each "sub-module" per system.

 

oh - and just my preference on things, i'd probably ditch the transistors outright and go for optocouplers.

 

PS; stretch goals to implement temp sensors so homeassistant can warn about coolant / heat sink temperatures?

[Dedayog]

How does this differ from using a Wifi outlet to turn power on and off to a PC what has Boot On Power?

 

 

[manikyath]

7 minutes ago, Dedayog said:

How does this differ from using a Wifi outlet to turn power on and off to a PC what has Boot On Power?

 

 

because

- wifi outlets are actually quite costly and bulky

- power on boot is annoying

- wifi outlets dont allow you to do other interactions (hold power button, short press to initiate shutdown, wake from sleep, ..)

- wifi outlets dont give you feedback on the computer's state

- if not doing my hair-brained "run the entire rack with one ESP32" idea, you can actually just integrate this into the front panel and forget it's there.

 

if my server didnt have IPMI i'd probably be implementing this as we speak...

 

EDIT: oh, and with some more logic, you could actually send "manual power button pressed" commands to homeassistant.

[Dedayog]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

because

- wifi outlets are actually quite costly and bulky

- power on boot is annoying

- wifi outlets dont allow you to do other interactions (hold power button, short press to initiate shutdown, wake from sleep, ..)

- wifi outlets dont give you feedback on the computer's state

- if not doing my hair-brained "run the entire rack with one ESP32" idea, you can actually just integrate this into the front panel and forget it's there.

 

if my server didnt have IPMI i'd probably be implementing this as we speak...

 

EDIT: oh, and with some more logic, you could actually send "manual power button pressed" commands to homeassistant.

First 2 points are moot for most but the rest I get.

 

Don't need anything that complicated, but very interesting way of doing it.  Kudos.

[manikyath]

Just now, Dedayog said:

First 2 points are moot for most but the rest I get.

it's a matter of preference.

[30cl]

On 11/2/2023 at 8:20 PM, manikyath said:

driving them with 10k resistance from 3v3 might be a bit too optimistic. with 1k you might not need two.

 

and for talking to multiple systems i'm pondering either dedicated inputs (there's plenty of pins), a multiplexer, or a 4-bit IO expander and just have i2c to each "sub-module" per system.

 

oh - and just my preference on things, i'd probably ditch the transistors outright and go for optocouplers.

 

PS; stretch goals to implement temp sensors so homeassistant can warn about coolant / heat sink temperatures?

The optocouplers looks cool, did not have that in my very very limited inventory.

For multiple system a i2c sub-modules sounds like an awesome idea. Just connect them via a simple jack or something. That way its easy to scale up/down and only have to care about 1 device to connect to your network.

[corrado33]

Sounds like this could much more easily be accomplished by a wifi dc relay connected to the power button circuit..... Then do the same for the reset button except set it up in windows to shut down nicely when you use that button. 

[30cl]

6 hours ago, corrado33 said:

Sounds like this could much more easily be accomplished by a wifi dc relay connected to the power button circuit..... Then do the same for the reset button except set it up in windows to shut down nicely when you use that button. 

If you have those laying around, you can sure use those. Just toggle the relays with a short (0.1 seconds) or longer (4 seconds) delay

 

If you are looking for something cheaper and willing to tinker, the Wemos D1 is half the price.