@Rich Melvin posted:

How about credit card fraud, identity theft, etc. It’s all related to your privacy.

Oh…and thanks so much for inferring that I am a gun-toting, mouth-breathing Luddite. For the record, I don’t own a gun.  

Folks, I’m just trying to make the point that Amazon is not giving you all this marvelous technology unless there is something it it for them. What do they get out of it? Information…about YOU...that they can sell to others who use it to compromise your privacy.

So do smart phones, and the vast majority of folks seem to have those too.  All I have to do is talk about Fender guitars for instance, then open facebook and I'll see an ad for fender in short order lmao.  Smart TVs can listen in too.  Everything is tracking us these days....cameras everywhere.  I don't like it either, but there's really no way, short of living off-grid, to avoid it completely.  As for Alexa..... let Amazon listen.  All they'll hear is 280 requests for the abc song by a toddler.  Good luck getting anything useful out of that!

@Rich Melvin posted:

How about credit card fraud, identity theft, etc. It’s all related to your privacy.

Oh…and thanks so much for inferring that I am a gun-toting, mouth-breathing Luddite. For the record, I don’t own a gun.  

Folks, I’m just trying to make the point that Amazon is not giving you all this marvelous technology unless there is something it it for them. What do they get out of it? Information…about YOU...that they can sell to others who use it to compromise your privacy.

Sure, and as others have detailed, that ship has pretty much sailed. And, since we're on the record, I don't personally participate in Facebook or other social media platforms that encourage oversharing, and I fully understand that any time you're not paying for a service, you're not the customer, you're actually the product!

With all that said, IMHO it's not sufficient to simply say that a theoretical abuse of personal privacy *might* occur. You need to weigh that potential risk against the benefits on offer, and ultimately that's a personal decision, hence the YMMV.

No intent to infer that *you* are personally a "gun-toting, mouth-breathing Luddite," just that IME (in *my* experience) there's a high correlation between those who easily get wrapped around the axle over relatively benign aspects of modern life, and those willfully oblivious to the demonstrable dangers of more traditional activities. Glad to hear you're not one of "them"!

Geez you guys can ruin a perfectly innocent thread. Why don’t you take this offline. The OP was showing us a neat thing he does.

O.K. I finally got all the bits together, and assembled my own version of the OP's voice controlled system:

Enjoy!

@Lionelski posted:

Warrenville uses 4 ZW's for trains and lights - can a Smart Plug handle this with a power strip plugged into it?

I wouldn't recommend using these 'smart outlets' for anything with significant current draw/use.

example -> my wife has a 500 watt (roughly 5 amps) space heater that sits near her feet at her desk. the location wasn't easy to reach so we put an alexa smart outlet on it (rated for 10 amps) - this way she could turn it on/off with her phone instead of climbing beneath the desk AND i had it programmed to shut off around 9pm (bedtime) to avoid energy waste. after a few months use it stopped working and when I checked on it it was clearly overheated/smoked and failed. maybe it was a 1 in a million defect, maybe the plug of the heater was cruddy or some other factor, I dunno. BUT if you have any significant current draw I would recommend that you don't install these where they aren't readily viewed/seen in case of a rare failure. That being said, I still have almost a dozen alexa switches/outlets controlling lights around my home - but they are all running household LED bulbs that use less that 2~3 amps.

@woodsyT posted:

I wouldn't recommend using these 'smart outlets' for anything with significant current draw/use.

example -> my wife has a 500 watt (roughly 5 amps) space heater that sits near her feet at her desk. the location wasn't easy to reach so we put an alexa smart outlet on it (rated for 10 amps) - this way she could turn it on/off with her phone instead of climbing beneath the desk AND i had it programmed to shut off around 9pm (bedtime) to avoid energy waste. after a few months use it stopped working and when I checked on it it was clearly overheated/smoked and failed. maybe it was a 1 in a million defect, maybe the plug of the heater was cruddy or some other factor, I dunno. BUT if you have any significant current draw I would recommend that you don't install these where they aren't readily viewed/seen in case of a rare failure. That being said, I still have almost a dozen alexa switches/outlets controlling lights around my home - but they are all running household LED bulbs that use less that 2~3 amps.

I gotta believe you just had a bad smart outlet. With a 10 amp rating, it should have easily handled the less than 5 amp draw of the heater. FWIW, the smart plugs I'm using are each rated at 15 amps, and if one failed while controlling my layout (which draws *well* under 5 amps, flat out!), I'd ask for a replacement under warranty.

@Steve Tyler posted:

I gotta believe you just had a bad smart outlet...

Right on & I agree - it should have handled it and have room to spare. 👍

Reading this prompted me to look at the other devices on my wall and they are all branded devices that are still available in home stores, but that doesn't mean they're perfect.

Things that have significant continuous current draw like our choo-choo transformers, or space heaters can present a 'duty cycle' problem for devices like these that do not have full, continuous duty 10/15/20 amp sized conductors or wire traces - or adequate ventilation on the lil' circuit boards they crammed in there.

FYI: a 10, 15, or 20 amp Trace on a circuit board would be roughly that many millimeters wide.

After the unit failed, I cracked it open just because I'm that sort of a pest 😉. It's difficult to say which part of the circuit failed because the whole thing was pretty well cooked - and there was no 10mm wide wire trace. There was a semi-beefy four or five mil wire trace on the circuit board and a 15 amp relay. I have some experience in fixing/building electronic products and control panels/systems - and I'm just suggesting caution/inspection, or maybe using more than one of these devices for a larger train table that has more than a couple large transformers 👍

Edit:

In fact after reading this I will probably be putting one on my own table because I occasionally go to bed at night and accidentally leave the whole system 'cooking'.

This way I could program it to shut everything off at o'dark-hundred 😉👍

@Steve Tyler posted:

O.K. I finally got all the bits together, and assembled my own version of the OP's voice controlled system:

Enjoy!

Just to be clear, I did *not* have to use Alexa Silver, though that might have been more demographically appropriate . . . though I don't know about that!

Alexa voice controls my overhead colored lighting, my amusement park accessories, my Halloween town Lemax buildings and a section of Menards buildings.  I don’t see her controlling my transformers.  It’s a convenient thing to do

Hunh? What did you say?

@Golden Prairie Railroad posted:

Hunh? What did you say?

I SAID . . .

@Golden Prairie Railroad posted:

Hunh? What did you say?

He said  for you to get the Alexa Silver Version! LOL

@Steve Tyler posted:

Just to be clear, I did *not* have to use Alexa Silver, though that might have been more demographically appropriate . . . though I don't know about that!

Oh geez...this is hilarious! I laughed out loud several times.

Alexa Silver video is a classic. I remember seeing it years ago when Alexa first came out. My advice - go to bathroom before viewing it!