How hard can it be, really? Smart Plugs

da02uk

I think I must be missing a trick here and bet most of you will think 'what a noob!'.

Anyway, having bought some smart bits and pieces I'm really struggling with some plugs. They are Teckin and I use Smart Life app to control. They work just fine as a simple on/off via the app or linked to Google home.

My issue is trying to put in to place a simple schedule. Back in the old days using the ticking dial you could position tabs on or off for 15 minute intervals throughout 24 hours. Why can i not do the same with these things? I thought it would be easier?

I have a small outdoor pool for the kids, I'd like to run the pump for a couple of minutes every fifteen, it uses black tubes and they warm up nicely in the sunshine and so provide a small amount of heating, that might just take the edge off for the grown ups.

I wanted to the plug to run dawn till dusk, 2 minutes on, 15 off. Is it really this difficult to achieve?

If you can point me in the direction of an app or similar I'd be really grateful. Ive tried IFTTT but can't seem to do it.

Thanks for getting this far, Dan

Jamie

I'm not familiar with the Smart Life app but the Kasa App I use with my own TP-Link plugs has a schedule page.

What you want is going to require 8 events per hour to achieve. Let's say 6am-9pm so that's 120 on or off events.

The next question is there an upper limit on scheduled events. Plus it would be an utter ballache entering and managing that many schedule entries.

The way the app handles schedules makes this not that trivial a task using the stock software.

Massively overkill but running Home Assistant as an automation server would make this very easy to do, providing your sockets were supported by home assistant, if you have a spare raspberry pi available it might be worth a look though.

Bryn1

I am pretty sure that Home assistant supports the Teckin sockets  (SP23's) via the 'tuya' integration but you would need to use the  Tuya convert software to flash the firmware

da02uk

I'm looking into Home Assistant now. Is it something I can install onto my Unraid server, we'll see?

Bryn1

here's a link to Home Assistant
Bit of a learning curve if you are not used to tinkering however the results are very good once you get the hang of it

xxGBHxx

Any home automation app/server can do it provided the devices are supported. Personally I use Hubitat and love it but YMMV and no idea whether you could get those plugs working with it.

G

cossie

If you any of the Alexa devices they control these plugs and you can set up schedules, done so myself for when I'm away on holiday.

chrisfraser05

You can do it from the Smart Life App no problem, it's just not easy to find it the first time.

1. when you open the App go to "Smart" at the bottom center.

2. At the top select "Automation"

3. Press "Add automation Scenario"

4. Press the Blue   for Adding a condition

5. Select "shedule"

6. On the top line select "once" or the days you want it to repeat on.

7. Select the time

8. Select the action you want, ie "turn on light"

9. Select "Save" at the top right

Once you find it it's easy to make more in future