Also on the topic of noise from the switch. I’m a big believer in EMI filtering at the power entry. Corcom or power line filters are often incorporated in the power entry module that your IEC cord plugs into. They have LC filters right at the entry point and do a nice job of filtering power line noise. I generally use them in all my designs and they are well worth the $20-$30 that they cost.
They aren’t super common in much of the high end gear and should be. These filter circuits are what is typically inside those power conditioner boxes everybody is gobbling up like chiclets in the high end world. It strikes me as smarter to add them to the gear where it’s needed and sized for the load of that piece of gear.
Agree with Sheldon, high current surges across the HomeKit or whatever switches is a bigger concern to the death of the switches…most are designed for fans or lights that are not controllable. I use one on my coffee machine which can pull 2400W easily but its its on a PID so doesn’t pull this immediately at power on…a few seconds later normally so the switch relay has had time to stabilise.
I have some of my gear (soon to be more/all of it) on a PS Audio P5 PowerPlant which is a regenerator of AC at 1200W.
One system including the 65" Plasma and HT setup plus my other gear is on an EVE HomeKit ready switch - mainly to reduce the standby footprint but most off it comes up in standby mode until turned on by IR remotes.
As for high power amps with big transformers they will have some soft start options built in generally and probably won’t kill the relays as long as the switches are designed for full rated use at max power load. Fo me in Singapore and UK thats normally around 13A @ 240VAC which is around 3100W
Speaking of home automation, for those of you that use unifi network gear. They now have a couple smart outlet strips. These are designed to plug your various network gear into. Mainly for your cable modem or similar untrustworthy gear. The controller in your system pings the outside world from time to time, and if it can’t see the outside world, the controller turns off the outlet for a few seconds and turns it on to power cycle the offending component.
As someone who had a crappy cable modem a few years ago that needed the occasional kick in the pants, I really liked this automatic concept.
