Home Theater/Game Room Thread

This is not really the thread for this, but I figure it is probably closer than anywhere else.

I have battery backups for all of my important devices, but I also have a few smaller ones that I use for stuff like a lamp. Not because I care about protecting the lamp, but because it is super convenient to have a lamp stay powered for hours whenever the power goes out. While my power doesn't go out all that much, it still happens a couple of times a year, and I've gotten good use out of having a lamp during those times.

However, the one I want to power the most is the one that connects to the wall switch, and I can't for obvious reasons. Long story short, I literally want something like this switch, except instead of a thumb toggle, I want to plug the wall switch into the side and use that as the toggle instead. I'm sure there is some way to do it with remote control stuff, but I don't want that. They have the switch right here, it just needs an input instead of that red switch. I've tried every search term I can think of, but all I find are these type.

Has anyone seen anything like what I'm looking for?

Void said:

This is not really the thread for this, but I figure it is probably closer than anywhere else.

I have battery backups for all of my important devices, but I also have a few smaller ones that I use for stuff like a lamp. Not because I care about protecting the lamp, but because it is super convenient to have a lamp stay powered for hours whenever the power goes out. While my power doesn't go out all that much, it still happens a couple of times a year, and I've gotten good use out of having a lamp during those times.

However, the one I want to power the most is the one that connects to the wall switch, and I can't for obvious reasons. Long story short, I literally want something like this switch, except instead of a thumb toggle, I want to plug the wall switch into the side and use that as the toggle instead. I'm sure there is some way to do it with remote control stuff, but I don't want that. They have the switch right here, it just needs an input instead of that red switch. I've tried every search term I can think of, but all I find are these type.

Has anyone seen anything like what I'm looking for?

View attachment 619750

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I've been thinking about a similar solution too mostly for disaster situations. The only thing I could come up with was something like a Tesla power wall.

BrutulTM said:

I don't understand what you're talking about. You want to power the circuit for your ceiling light fixtures?

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No, a normal standing lamp that plugs into the wall and is controlled by the wall switch right by the front door, but way across the room. I want to plug that lamp into the battery backup, but still control it from the wall switch.

BrutulTM said:

Unless I'm still misunderstanding, you can't control it with a switch that's not in the circuit the lamp is being powered by. The normal way to attach backup power to the existing house wiring is with a transfer switch, but I'm still not sure I get what you are talking about.

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Imagine I take that switch that I showed the pic of in my original post and plugged it into the battery backup. I'm talking a battery backup like for a computer, not a whole house one. If I were then to plug the floor lamp into that plug on the top, it would be powered by the battery backup whenever the red switch was flipped on. I could also turn it off whenever I chose by flipping the red switch off. However, since the battery backup is behind the couch, it would be inconvenient to reach back there every time I wanted to turn the light on or off. Instead, if I were to take an extension cord that was connected to the outlet that is controlled by the wall switch and connect that to some theoretical plug that replaces the red switch, that little adapter would now be toggled on and off by the wall switch instead of the little red switch. Does that make sense now? The functionality is already in that switch I pictured, it is just inconvenient because I would have to actually go over to that red switch and activate it every time.

If I were confident enough in my electrical skills I'm sure it would be child's play to take that red switch apart and instead wire an extension cord into it like I described, but I'm not confident enough to risk burning everything down.

Control said:

Something like this might work?
View attachment 619813View attachment 619814

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That could indeed do exactly what I want, thank you. It is a little wasteful since I already have the battery backup there powering stuff like my Nvidia Shield, a router, and a few other things that are remote controlled or always on, but I suppose $15 a bulb isn't much different than buying the hypothetical switch I want. Except that the bulbs eventually burn out and the switch doesn't, but I guess if it doesn't exist then this is the next best solution. Thanks again.

EDIT: Ha, I just looked through some switches again, and the fucking Clapper would do exactly what I need. For Brutul, you plug the clapper into an outlet, and then plug the lamp into the clapper. When you clap, it powers it on or off, just like that red switch does, but without having to walk over to it and flip a switch. I'm not going to buy a clapper since Control's battery lightbulbs are a much simpler solution, but the clapper is exactly the function I'm trying to replicate, except with running another cord instead of clapping. It would basically be an AND gate, if both are on, turn the light on, if one is off, turn it off.

BrutulTM said:

It sounds like you're thinking the wall switch connects the two sides of the outlet together? That's not how it works. The wall switch is only in the "hot" side and it connects the outlet to the breaker box. If you connected the two sides of the red switch to your switched outlet the wall switch would not turn the light on and off, but it would, when the switch was closed, connect the battery to your panel which would lead to it powering the whole house and feeding power back onto the grid as well which would be bad although I imagine it would trigger the current protection on the UPS.

Or it's possible that I'm still not following you.

If you just want a switch that isn't behind the couch you could get something like this:

https://a.co/d/0e45IuDh

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I'm not sure if what I want is possible, so perhaps you are right.

Those corded switches aren't going to work either because they will either cut the power to the entire UPS, which I don't want, or the lamp still won't be connected to the UPS, I'd just be swapping out the wall switch for the corded switch.

I'll just buy a pack of those bulbs Control linked and see how that works.

BrutulTM said:

If you wanted to have battery backup for your lights, the real way to do it would be to buy something like this...

Amazon.com

View attachment 619996

Then you could move the breakers for 6 circuits you want to power when the electricity's out (lights, refrigerator, wifi router, etc) and plug it in to either a generator or a battery power station. That would require the services of an electrician though and I'm guessing you don't want to go that far with it.

With LED bulbs it's a lot more plausible to have battery power for the lights than it used to be since they use so little power.

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With modern smart home products, the switch can happen immediately as a disruption is detected. I've seen a few options here in Japan. Since the cost of electricity is high here, many people use backup batteries attached to their home as a way of taking advantage of off peak energy prices. Use the battery during the time of day when energy prices are highest and switch back to the grid when the come down.