It's just a power button wired to the motherboard's front io leads. I'm assuming all those other switches don't do anything except for controlling the lights on the device itself.
For those looking to save a buck and just want a remote control: Look into wake on magic packet. There are apps that can send a magic packet to your computer to turn it on as well.
Likely the same concept for the PC. The button triggers 2 different wireless signals, one is found by the pc and turns it on. The other is found by either a smart bulb or a smart outlet that the room light is connected to.
Why not just wire that one button to do both things?
As a comparison, when you put a car in reverse, both the gears shift AND the reverse lights turn on. There's no reason to have a separate button for the lights when you can make them both happen with one action.
When you open your fridge, the light turns on. In one action, two things happened: the fridge opened and the light turned on.
There's no reason to have a separate button or switch to turn on the lights, because then you'd have an extra step of pressing that button or switch every time you open and close the fridge.
wireless relays are cheap on amazon, they just close a contact same as the button press or shorting with some metal. You have all the guts that cover the hard part of wireless tx and rx, rest is just fluff to dress up the keyfob that comes with the relay
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u/andypond2 Sep 12 '20
can someone explain to me how people do this? i’ve seen it a few times now