[elsmandino]

My other half has a terrible habit of leaving everything on - I often come home to realise that she has nipped out, leaving all the applicances in our living room (Raspberry Pi 2, Amplifier, Sub-Woofer and TV).

I know that the Pi just sips electricity but I was wondering whether there are any solutions for automatically turning off the other three devices when in not in use.

I was looking at an energy saver extension lead that automatically turn off appliances but would this even work with a Pi 2? Is there a lower powermode that the Pi can enter that would be sufficient to allow the power strip to detect and switch off the other outlets?

[DarrenHill]

My other half has a terrible habit of leaving everything on - I often come home to realise that she has nipped out, leaving all the applicances in our living room (Raspberry Pi 2, Amplifier, Sub-Woofer and TV).

I know that the Pi just sips electricity but I was wondering whether there are any solutions for automatically turning off the other three devices when in not in use.

I was looking at an energy saver extension lead that automatically turn off appliances but would this even work with a Pi 2? Is there a lower powermode that the Pi can enter that would be sufficient to allow the power strip to detect and switch off the other outlets?

At home I've got one of these. All the stuff except the Pi is in the non-switch sockets (towards the label/cable end of the block) with the Pi and my PVR box in the other two sockets.

The black sensor picks up IR, and you set it up to trigger on the standby button of the TV (or any other button on the remote you care to choose). It then switches off the power to the non-switch sockets, whilst leaving the power to the other two sockets (the ones with manual switches) on. They turn on in the same fashion, detecting the IR signature of the standby button brings everything back to life again.

Works very well, so when I "switch off" (ie switch to standby) the TV, both it, the DVD player, a display picture frame and the Wii turn themselves fully off. And if I want to fully power off the Pi (after shutting it down of course) I just flick the switch on the block as if it was plugged into a wall-wart.

If I remember correctly the Pi doesn't pull significantly less power when idle as to when running, so I'd doubt there will be a detectable difference. But others with deeper knowledge may have more to say there.

[popcornmix]

See: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=228602
The suggestion is to leave the Pi on - it uses next to no electricity.

[speedwell68]

See: http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=228602
The suggestion is to leave the Pi on - it uses next to no electricity.

That wasn't the OP's question. It seems to be the mantra around here that says keep the Pi on as it will only use $2 a year in juice. Well that is still $2 a year wasted. What is the carbon footprint of several million RPIs being left on worldwide? Also it is not always the Pi's power consumption that we need to worry about, it is all the peripheral devices connected to it.

I too have this dilemma. My AVR + Sub draw 235w even when idle. My TV has a function that if no buttons have been pressed after a pre-defined time (3 hours in my case) the TV will prompt you to keep it active. If then after 60 seconds there is still no activity the TV goes into standby. My AVR also has a similar function. It'll power down the sub after 10 minutes of inactivity and then the AVR will go down after 3 hours at the same time the TV does. I have set it to 3 hours as there aren't many movies longer than that.

[Ned Scott]

This is one of those times that it's good to have the GPIO, and lots of great documentation and examples on how to use the GPIO. It should be fairly easy to have an idle script in Kodi that toggles a power relay. People have even used remote control outlets as a way to safely isolate the Pi from mains power.

For example, take this guy: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Status-SREMSOC3P...003XOXAVG/

We don't even need all three plugs, but that was a cheap one that came up on a search. By connecting the Pi only to the remote control, we safely interface with the power relay: http://jack.minardi.org/raspberry_pi/mak...and-flask/

You wouldn't have to do all of the instructions on that page, since we don't need a web server for Kodi control (unless you want additioal remote control). Since the actual commands happen over python, it's fairly easy to get Kodi to trigger commands as if it were a screensaver or using some other idle timer, as well as turning things back on. To be honest, I'm not sure what exactly all that would look like, but that kind of thing is possible to figure out even if you've never used python before.

You're probably thinking, but Ned, that's far more than I wanted to do. Yes, but think of it as a weekend project. It's cheap, safe, and really cool. You could even go crazy and hook up the extra outlets to control lights when movies start and stop (they just won't dim, since these are relays).

There's probably even easier ways to do this, but what OP is asking is a fairly common non-kodi-related Pi project, and if you're into that kind of thing, it can be very fun and rewarding to work on. Because it's a common project, there's lots of advice out there and how-tos or doing this, making it easy for DIY beginners.

Which reminds, me I need to finish making a Raspberry Pi gameboy and also make some automated window shades.

[elsmandino]

Thanks very much for your input above.

That IR Power Strip is a really clever idea (never seen that before). Unfortunately, as my other half tends to forget to turn anything off (including the TV), I guess I shall have to think of something else - as you say, the PI is (to its great credit) propabtly too low a wattage to operate one of these powersaving sockets effectively.

The hack, using remote sockets, is very clever but I don't trust my skills enough to put it into practice - maybe in the future.

The auto-off function for the TV and Amp is a very interesting idea. Unless there are any other options, I might have to consider trying that - is a bit worrying that a 235w is possible when idling!

[elsmandino]

I have just done a bit more research and it appears that my TV (Samsung LE40A656) supports Anytime Anynet+ - is there any way I can use the Pi's CEC adapter to turn off the TV?

[katsup]

I have just done a bit more research and it appears that my TV (Samsung LE40A656) supports Anytime Anynet+ - is there any way I can use the Pi's CEC adapter to turn off the TV?

When you enable CEC and set it to turn off the TV when Kodi is shutdown? Settings --> System --> Input Device --> Peripherals to check the settings. Try shutting down Kodi on the PI and see if the TV turns off as well.

If it does, you can configure kodi to shutdown x minutes of being idle under power saving which should also turn off the TV.