I’ve had a laptop that I’ve never been able to get WoL (Wireless or otherwise) to work, no matter what I tried. Recently realized that the Bluetooth keyboard I used was able to wake it with a key press though.

I searched and found an ESP Home project that will make an ESP32 emulate a Bluetooth keyboard - https://github.com/dmamontov/esphome-blekeyboard

Now for $6 of hardware, I can wake my Laptop up remotely via HA, whenever needed. Definitely recommended!

  • @throw4w4y5English
    26•4 months ago

    I must be too old school because my first thought when i read this was “with an old solenoid lying around and a few lines of code, an AtTiny could strike a key on the bluetooth keyboard, waking the laptop!

    • @GloriaEnglish
      9•4 months ago

      You could ditch the solenoid and use a ATMega32u4 that can act as a HID device to send a keypress signal.

      • PanqEnglish
        6•4 months ago

        I’m mildly surprised OP’s laptop keeps the bluetooth radio powered up while asleep, but I would be a lot more surprised to find one that doesn’t work with USB HID.

        • ArmoredCavalryOPEnglish
          2•4 months ago

          I was a little surprised as well, but I think it’s because the keyboard / mouse I use (and the ESP32) all use Bluetooth LE specifically.

          I looked at USB solutions first actually, but then decided to try ESP Home solution since I was already familiar with the system.

    • ArmoredCavalryOPEnglish
      4•4 months ago

      I definitely thought about trying something physical like that too, but mostly as a fallback plan!

      • The PantserEnglish
        4•4 months ago

        My thoughts were a switchbot, for a non diy version. You put the bot on the laptop power button or keyboard.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•4 months ago

      I was thinking of using an electro magnet to trigger the lid switch. Maybe we are just fans rube goldberg setups :D

    • ArmoredCavalryOPEnglish
      5•4 months ago

      I actually tried something like this, the laptop BIOS didn’t have any settings to tweak for A/C power changes. However, it does wake from sleep after plugging in. The issue is, it immediately goes back to sleep (within seconds). Tried quite a few things to try to stop that behavior (e.g. running Power Toys Awake) but had no luck.

      So that’s when I switched to ESP Keyboard.

        • Norah - She/TheyEnglish
          3•4 months ago

          I think most laptop’s still have the option of whether to boot or not when you plug them in with a dead battery.

  • blazera
    7•4 months ago

    Why did you need final fantasy’s Warrior of Light to wake up your laptop?

    • ArmoredCavalryOPEnglish
      6•4 months ago

      Oh yeah I should have specified this is to wake from sleep, not a complete shutdown. So not a complete replacement for WoL.