APC Switched Rack PDU (7XXX Series) Driver

[howieumd]

I wanted to gauge interest to find if others would find it beneficial for, or see if there's even a developer out there who would develop, a driver for the AP7XXX Series of APC Switched Rack PDU's?  I know Alan created one for the AP8XXX Series.   However, he said feedback he received from integrators that tried his driver was that it wouldn't work with the AP7XXX Series, which is unfortunate in my case, and I'm sure for others as well.

 

I think these would be great for remote management for each location that there is a television in the home, or anywhere for that matter that you have a need for a PDU.   The AP7XXX Series are smaller for homes, and a little less expensive than that of the AP8XXX series which cost significantly more and have a lot more outlets on them.  They seem more for commercial use, but I'm sure there's people who use AP8XXX series for homes too, though they seem overboard for my purposes.   I have one of the AP7XXX series at each of my television/theater setups.   They are great for remotely restarting the main C4 controller as well as turning off other pieces of equipment such as amps, game consoles, or even receivers, media devices, cable boxes, etc when they are in not commonly used rooms, rather than leave them in standby all the time, to help save electricity.

 

It'd be great to get them integrated into C4.   A further feature I'd use it for if it were integrated is parental controls.  2 of my television setups are for the kids.  I'd have it scheduled within C4 to shut the outlets off at those televisions at their bedtimes and turn them on before they wake up.  Also, time for dinner, or any other time for chores or homework or whatever, open the C4 app and kill the power to their TV/game consoles, rather than holler down or up a flight of stairs and wait for them to finish their game.  It goes off, they come, trust me, it works.  There's other ways I can do this, as I have individual wall outlets that control this, but it'd be preferable to be able to individually control each outlet on the PDU (no video games, just television allowed right now)

 

I think integrators/dealers could sell these products with C4.  Retail they are $500+, but I picked up 4 used AP7901's and 1 AP7900 recently for a total of $265 on eBay.  These are always available used at a significant discount over the new price, and they all seem to work great.   Integrators/dealers can recommend getting used ones cheap along with the driver (if it were to be made) and would then have control over all the outlets (for the homeowner and the integrator) to do reboots, parental controls, energy savings, etc.  

 

Does anybody else think this would be useful?  Is there a developer out there willing to make this driver?  Alan said he would if there was a large enough need for it, but the driver for the AP8XXX series hasn't done all that well.  However, I think it might be because they aren't as useful as the AP7XXX series would be for residential setups.