One thing that is a bit frustrating is that sometimes at out Airbnbs, a switch relay will get stuck (looking at you Leviton), or a device will need to be reset. You have to cycle the circuit breaker unfortunately, and most guests don’t want to do that.
Switchboard has a little robot arm that can press things, or with fishing wire pull things.
If there was a device that could flip a breaker and flip it back remotely, that would be amazing. Not only that but it could be used like a switchbot on a variety of things including opening secret doors or moving physical items or flipping switches.
I know there are some legalities, but it could just be marketed as a really strong switchbot!
I think this is a real edge case. I’ve never had to regularly power cycle circuit breakers and I’ve never heard of anyone who did. If you have switches that lock up and need a hard power cycle to restore functionality they should be fixed or replaced- if that’s a light switch and the light doesn’t come on when commanded that could create an unsafe situation. If this happens a lot for you, you may need a whole house surge suppressor…
There’s also the issue that most circuit breakers aren’t built to be cycled constantly. Few hundred / couple thousand times sure, but doing it every day for years?
And let’s not forget the liability issue- what happens when Joe Homeowner gets sick of his breaker always popping so he writes a routine like ‘if power fails to XYZ module, then turn breaker on’… and the breaker gets forced back on, even though there’s some other problem, and someone gets hurt. Liability+++.
There’s also just the raw safety concern- what happens if someone is working on the wiring and this automatic thing turns the power on? Nothing good.
A few companies are working on smart load centers- Leviton has one for sale but you can only remotely trip the breaker not turn it back on. Remote turn on is coming though. No idea how they’re going to address the above issues.
Twice a month on average with levitron. They tend to get stuck in the on position and stop reporting. I think its because of button mashing guests, but either way its a pain.
Oh no, not that much, just a few bedrooms that have it individually happen to them once or twice a quarter.
Fair enough, I wasn’t thinking automation, just a way to remotely reset breakers.
The smart load center market seems to be up for grabs right now, and I personally would be dropping the coin today for a panel that could do per-circuit power monitoring and remote on/off of individual breakers. Just saying…
There are a handful of different load center designs in use, and they do not seem to support a standard breaker design. I suspect that licensing across the different manufacturers to make circuit breakers for their panels would cost more than making a new load center and getting it certified.
I wonder if a “side car” to an existing load center would be a legal option under code? Leave the breakers in the load center doing the protection work, but have a bank of switches with monitoring between the breakers and the branch circuits???
Potentially, but the circut breaker shape is pretty standard across the board. And the original patents have all expired a long time ago. If you can make a new one that fits into existing panels, then your potential market increases considerably!
Like something that clips onto/into the exit wire after the breaker itself?
Automating a circuit breaker in my opinion is not a way to handle a failure elsewhere. What would happen if the automation continued to reset the breaker when there was a real failure? Fire?
I would suggest one should fix the root cause. I’ve been on this an other HA forums and an issue of a device “locking up regularly” has not been posted (to my knowledge). So I would start by first changing the issue device to a different brand, possibly newer with more advanced capability. or at lease a “air gap” switch that disconnected the device not just the output.
These look nice. I would appreciate the green lights through the observation window; however, there is a +$50/breaker upcharge from the standard 20A breaker to make it “smart”. That’s a lot of extra cash to make it “smart”.
You’re Leviton switches may just need a firmaware update. That said, I’ve never had to cycle the breaker to reset my switches, just air gap them and go from there.
