Home Assistant advice - how to automatically switch off a dumb TV?

Whiffle

Whiffle

Whiffle

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27 Jul 2009
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386
Hi there.

I have a Zigbee-based set up, running off a Pi.

I have this really irritating issue, involving three of my TVs (all non-smart and non-CEC).

They each have a Firestick attached to them, which turns the screen to black after 5 minutes.

My family keep thinking that the TV is off and thus the TV is left on for hours at a time - not particularly good, given the energy crisis.

I cannot think of a way of getting HA to automate this.

There is a Firestick integration (Android TV) that can sense when a Firestick is idle - I could then use this to tell a Zigbee IR blaster to then turn the TV off (and then on again, should the Firestick state change to anything but idle.

HOWEVER - I realised that this is far from fool proof - i.e. if the IR blaster fails to turn off the TV, one time, the whole system will become backward.

I cannot think how to get round this and would appreciate any advice.

Thanks very much.
 
Whiffle said:
Won't killing the power, to a TV that is on, potentially damage it?
Click to expand...
No otherwise there would be a huge rush to John Lewis everytime there is a thunderstorm and the electric goes off?



Rather than getting a smart plug, hasn't the TV got an Auto power off function (so it powers off after 4 hours with no user input)? (Almost all TVs I've ever used have, even before Smart TVs were a thing)
 
Thanks for that - that being the case, a Smart switch would be perfect.

Only one of my three smart TVs have the auto power off function, which I agree is very odd.

They are both Toshibas, so perhaps they are less bothered by that sort of thing.
 
Whiffle said:
Hi there.



HOWEVER - I realised that this is far from fool proof - i.e. if the IR blaster fails to turn off the TV, one time, the whole system will become backward.
Click to expand...
This is the thing I hate about ir blasters, I can't see how anyone finds them useful because of that.

As you have a zigbee setup consider getting a zigbee smartplug instead of wifi, it will act as a router and improve your mesh coverage.

Another solution would be to change the firestick screensave to something other than black? A quick google suggests it does have alternative screensavers built in
 
Great - thank you for the pointer about the Zigbee mesh. Wifi sockets are slightly cheaper but the mesh improvement would definitely outweight that.
 
I hope this terminology is correct... but my TV turns on/off with HDMI-CEC

amazonfiretv.blog

Get Your TV To Do What You Want — Faster

Have you ever wanted to use your Fire TV, but when you turn on your TV it is on the wrong HDMI input? Even if it was on the correct input…
amazonfiretv.blog amazonfiretv.blog

How to Enable HDMI-CEC on Your Fire TV

There are days when we want to watch something on our Fire TV but it takes minutes before the screen fills up because your TV is on the wrong HDMI input or the TV took a long time to boot up. You can avoid this annoying wait time by enabling HDMI-CEC on your Fire TV. HDMI-CEC is a code that...
forums.tomsguide.com forums.tomsguide.com

Not sure if your TV has this, but perhaps worth looking into.

Basically it means the firestick remote turns the firestick and TV on/off, controls volume etc and I don't need to use the TV remote at all :)

EDIT - Nevermind! :p
 
If the op can get hold of a harmony hub* that could control the TV including turning it off with voice commands via Alexa, Google etc.


*The Fire TV cube can do the same thing as it's got an IR blaster, but the harmony remotes were superb for this and i'm still annoyed logitech discontinued them with basically no notice.
 
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I use a broadlink rm mini for my daughters TV. They can be had for less than £15 iirc, works perfectly with home assistant. I use it for a bedtime routine.
 
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