I still use it – lights and fans plugged in and cron-driven from my central Linux system with firecracker/bottlerocket – but, as others have said, it is rather sensitive to, not only interference from line noise, but changed line reactance as well (such as, plugging in a turned-off vacuum cleaner on an extension cord). There are parts of the house it won’t work in; when something that did work stops working, I go looking, usually to find that someone moved what outlet a gaming computer is plugged into; that’s enough to jam it.
The radio part of it (bottlerocket to receiver-module) is subject to noise too. Here again, the last two decades have seen a substantial increase in interference, in this case from devices on wifi or just radiating switching harmonics: the wallwarts used to all be Type-2 analog, now they’re switchers.
Bottom-line recommendation: go ahead and play with it, setting things up for conveniences. If it works, great. Don’t rely on it; don’t use it for anything mission-critical. Since I prefer not to add to the local QRM (manmade radio noise), my thinking now is IoT using ethernetted ARM boards (an A20-Micro only eats 5W even with HD) to drive devices directly or over USB/RS485 lines. I wish I could tell you different.
I still use it – lights and fans plugged in and cron-driven from my central Linux system with firecracker/bottlerocket – but, as others have said, it is rather sensitive to, not only interference from line noise, but changed line reactance as well (such as, plugging in a turned-off vacuum cleaner on an extension cord). There are parts of the house it won’t work in; when something that did work stops working, I go looking, usually to find that someone moved what outlet a gaming computer is plugged into; that’s enough to jam it.
The radio part of it (bottlerocket to receiver-module) is subject to noise too. Here again, the last two decades have seen a substantial increase in interference, in this case from devices on wifi or just radiating switching harmonics: the wallwarts used to all be Type-2 analog, now they’re switchers.
Bottom-line recommendation: go ahead and play with it, setting things up for conveniences. If it works, great. Don’t rely on it; don’t use it for anything mission-critical. Since I prefer not to add to the local QRM (manmade radio noise), my thinking now is IoT using ethernetted ARM boards (an A20-Micro only eats 5W even with HD) to drive devices directly or over USB/RS485 lines. I wish I could tell you different.