I have spent the morning trying to find a simple and cheap way to turn on smart plug when motion is detected. Much of the info I've found is outdated or overkill (zwave, homeseer, etc.). Can anyone point me to a simple tutorial on what to do?

Wifi is fine, cloud-based server is fine - this is not "mission critical". One of the issues is that there are too many ways to do it

I just want a cheap and simple way to turn on a smart plug and after a few minutes turn it off.

The problem I'm trying to solve is this: I have an old dog who walks down our hall in the middle of the night when he decides to do his business. We are asleep and if he can't wake us (he doesn't try very hard) he just walks to remote part of the house and relieves himself. A strobe hooked to the smart plug would wake us in time to intercept him and let him outside.

TIA

One forum member did a similar thing with a usb relay board that BI5 could command on and off. Cheap too. I guess that thread got culled in the July forum crash

This might work:

$10.00 USB relay board:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/133973949295?c ... efdaf3409e

Youtube vid on making it work in BI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMOrbXsTrWA

Over to you OP

Something for the weekend Sir ?

Not really what you asked for but I can recommend this solution...
We had a cat in a rented home, where we were unable to install a cat flap. So we needed to be woken whenever the cat wanted to go out, or come in. I bought a cheap shed alarm which comprised an alarm unit and 2 PIR triggers, all battery powered. The trigger devices went inside and outside the back door, while the alarm was in the bedroom. Worked like a treat and cost <£20 from Amazon.

Blink + Alexa (Amazon) might do it:

gbguy wrote: ↑Thu Aug 24, 2023 7:31 pm The problem I'm trying to solve is this: I have an old dog who walks down our hall in the middle of the night

Why not just use a cheap camera as your triggering device to send a MMS alert to a bedside cell phone?

If interested in such an option, and as also endorsed in another thread, I would strongly suggest the TP-Link Tapo C110. Believe it or not, It's an ONVIF device and works great with BI. $20 on Amazon. I just bought one to mess with as a flu temp monitor for a wood burning furnace and am impressed to the extent of finding it untterly ridiculous that such a bargain even exists. Really, gang. They can even be set up with zero reliance on internet/cloud connectivity. And if you need (or want) an exclusive wi-fi solution just for such a monitoring situation or side network, their little routers are also nice devices and available all over the place used for nect to nothing.


https://www.amazon.com/smart-indoor-sec ... 5G1Y8&th=1

Granted it's a wi-fi device if that's an issue for anyone. Mine has been rock solid on my network with zero dropouts since I fired it up. The TP-Link app is well done and very easy to navigate -- and handles all their Tapo and Kasa devices in one convenient place. (BTW, the kASA devices are a proprietary self-contained ecosystem for less adventurous users while the Tapo line provides quite a bit more advanced functionality.)

Best bang for the buck anywhere for a solid 2K ONVIF camera that doesn't need to call home for anything after initially being registered to establish its warranty.

I'm still rooting for Homeseer due to the sheer range of conditional logic that can be used, and the fact that you will keep adding to it once you have started.
Here we have my Reolink doorbell camera sending out Onvif commands that are read by Homeseer. It can send motion, person or doorbell button pressed. Here it is checking for the doorbell being pressed. It then checks if I am in the house or not and if I have silenced door alarms (Includes having the Reolink doorbell sounder plugged in to a Zigbee socket). Finally if all OK it can speak a written message to all Alexa speakers, or just a specific set as seen here. In this case it is also playing an MP3 using preset<1>:



That should be enough solutions. Tell us what you decide to do

About the OP's desire to avoid 'overkill' part?

Set up a cheap camera in Blue Iris to trigger with motion and send an alert scheduled during sleeping hours. Dog enters scene. Phone rings and human wakes up to let dog out.

Dog does business outside instead of on living room rug.

Mission accomplished by a 20 dollar camera and simple 15 minute setup.

Or similar to the suggested Blink setup, forget BI (and plugs) altogether and just use the Tapo app itself for the cam alerts. After all it is a pet/baby cam. Just need to have both the cam and designated phone(s) on the same Wi-Fi network and you're good to go for alerts that are nearly instant.

(Hopefully the subject of the matter is still with us and doing well otherwise.)

Looks like we need a bigger boat !

Home Automation is contagious, a bit like buying cameras. Home automation can be Home Assistant (free) on an old RasPi3. Cheap as chips, and opens a lot of doors - metaphorically and physically

More power !!!!