Monitor plug socket remote from desktop PC

Question

Planning a one off party event that involves turning mains lights on/off and then playing media on a PC connected screen.

It need not be very fast and doesn't need to use internet but WiFi is available if that route would be simpler/cheaper.

It is easy enough to source dump 433mhz remote controlled sockets and rig the remote to fire when needed. But I am unsure how to go about detecting the transmission from remote to the socket to play the media on the PC.

I imagine I would need some sort of USB transceiver but I haven't found any USB ones that I could drive under Linux. Most of the articles online use expansion boards for Pi or Arduino. I did find one article using a cheap USB dongle and others vaguely mentioning USB SDR radio.

I do have a USB to TTL Serial Converter that I use for flashing, could I buy a 433 transceiver and rig it up to that?

Alternatively I have a Wiimote lying around that could be rig up as the sensor and then use a WiFi plug that is accessible from Linux to turn on/off the lights?

Answer 1

If you have internet, it would be easiest to use a switch that can be controlled via IFTTT. Just google IFTTT light switch and you'll see the light ! If you dont have internet, you can still use a RaspberryPI with a relay shield and run an MQTT broker on a PC to which the raspberryPI will connect. And you can then run another MQTT program on the PC to send on/off messages to the PI. You could also locate the broker on the PI. May also run a web server on the PI. Google can help there too !