Reboot your home theater remotely with PS Audio PowerPlay
By Erik Hanson 
posted Dec 29th 2007 10:02PM
posted Dec 29th 2007 10:02PM
While the corporate IT world has long had access to remotely-controlled power for servers and data centers, it's pretty cutting-edge stuff for home theater, with PS Audio releasing the first line of Internet-connected power management devices. Ranging in price from $600 to $1,995 and scheduled to release in Spring 2008, the four products in the PowerPlay line differ in number of switchable and isolated plugs, but all offer a web interface to toggle power, schedule reboots, and monitor power quality. There is an RS-232 port for hardwired power control as well as IR blasters for turning devices back on after a reboot. Now you can reboot your TiVo without ever stepping foot in the house.
Nice... exept I already made one of those myself (just without the internet interface thing)
Its too bad we even need to reboot our home theater devices.
Welcome to 1998....go pick up and APC with the same features for 1/2 the price.
I hardly see how it's "cutting edge" ;P I really hope that was sarcasm.
What's the point? My HTPC stays on all the time and most people can set up remote desktop to reboot it if it is needed.
I don't understand... if I'm not home to reboot it myself, why would it be on in the first place?
$800 to reboot what exactly? Am I failing to see what device you would suddenly thing while your away from home "oooh, I need to reboot that"? The only thing that comes to mind is a Media Center PC, and free services like LogMeIn (which is fantastic) performs that role properly.
Maybe I'd rather invest in quality components that I don't need to reboot?
No no, you're not getting the point... this is not to reboot the things, those are just Erik's words (I guess)
You can turn on & turn off on a certain schedule.. that's how I use mine.. I don't have to hunt down for my remote when it's The Simpson time
As for disconnecting the whole power instead of just using the IR blaster to turn off, that's to save you electricity... EVERY (digital) electronic thing uses energy when it's off, be it to hold the power flip-flop circuit on, or be it to hold on the watchdog that is always looking for signals from the remote, or better yet: things that have multiple watchdogs (such as TVs that auto-on when they receive signals from the component/composite input).... Granted, it's a tiny amount of energy... but when you sum up the energy that your WHOLE gear uses when it's off, the results are noticeable
Let's not even get into what the Wii uses, looking for bluetooth AND Wifi-ing into WiiConnect24 every 10 minutes or whenever
@computer dude:
Well, in standby with wc24 on the Wii uses 9.3W as shown here:
http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-356-4.htm
Note, that's half of the 18W for playing a game. Although that's probably a lot more power than a TV uses in standby (not entirely sure on that figure) it's still almost nothing compared to, say, a light bulb, even a fluorescent one. And you always have the option of turning wc24 off, in which case power consumption is around 1.3W. Certainly not substantial by any means.
This would be great if you could add parental controls and remotely shut the TV or Video Game off during times when Kids should be doing home work, sleeping, or cleaning their rooms. It would be highly complementary to a child monetoring web cam parents use while at work.
Another nice feature that should be considered is an energy consumption meter, similar to what is on the exterior of your home. Kind of like the Kill-a-watt or Seasonic but with data logging/graphing abilities.
-Caps
You would be so much cooler if you made your posts in all caps
I'LL TAKE YOUR ADVICE IN TO CONSIDERATION.
THANKS.
-caps
It's like cruise control for cool!
This is obviously aimed at the system builder that puts everything in racks and needs an easy way to reboot devices when a customer calls and yells that they can't watch the football game on their $300,000 home theater because the DirecTV receiver is saying "searching for signal".
Google "Web Power Switch". I use these at work and they are under $100 for 8 switched sockets with a web interface. You can even have it ping your servers and reboot them if they fail.
This thing is seriously overpriced. Any number of existing power switch companies could compete quite easily for less than half of what these cost.
quote "cutting edge for media centres" sorry but I have been using a Linux media centre now for close on to 4 years and remote reboot/reset has always been there.
you can do this z-wave devices already either via internet or cellular access/control. use either plug in modules or receptacles.