| Quick story: On the day we were closing on our 1920s house here in Massachusetts, we noticed that the oven wouldn't turn on. Then we noticed that it was shut off at the breaker. We asked the owner why, and he said "oh, the mainboard in the oven (a Thermidor) has some issue where it beeps incessantly in the middle of the night and wakes us all up – but not a big deal: you can just turn it off and on at the breaker and it works just fine!" He'd apparently sent the mainboard in multiple times to have it serviced, but the problem persisted. That wasn't a really satisfying answer at the closing table, so we pressed to get compensated for the oven we were rather sure we'd have to replace. A few weeks later, as we were pricing out $2000-3000 replacement units, I had an idea to look for a smart relay to control the oven's dedicated circuit. I managed to find a 40-amp smart switch for $90 that I could control with SmartThings. Now we can use the app or say "Alexa, turn on the oven," the switch is activated in the basement, and the oven turns on. At midnight, SmartThings turns it off if we haven't already, preventing the beeping. $90 got us where we needed to be, and it's been working great for almost five years now. |