I’m a frequent user of wake on lan (WOL) and occasionally experience a frozen machine (intel NUC) that either won’t fully shutdown or won’t wake up with WOL after some Microsoft update is applied (potentially temporarily breaking the LAN WOL or windows firewall settings until I get back in to fix it). As a result, I need a failsafe so that when I’m not physically home I can remotely turn on the machine in the event WOL is nonviable. My two options I’m thinking of are:
1) use a WiFi plug and kill power to the nuc and turn it back on. There is a BIOS option to automatically power on the unit after a power failure but I’m unsure of how the bios interprets a “power failure”. In almost all cases I am intentionally shutting down the machine via RDP / it gets a legitimate windows shutdown but then encounters the issue above (hang at shutdown or borked WOL after windows update). If I use a WiFi plug and cut the power after self initiating a shutdown, will the bios option to resume after power failure actually kick in? In essence, is the fact that the plug was effective removed and plugged back in upon engaging the WiFi plug (regardless of initiating the shutdown in windows) enough turn itself back on via the bios power failure option?
—> this is my first option / preference as I already have an ecosystem of WiFi plugs
2) if the answer to the above is “no” (that it registered a legit shutdown and so the WiFi plug turning off and on is meaningless), then I’m thinking of getting a SwitchBot and placing it over the power button to use as the failsafe — that way I can either power it down if hung at shutdown or power it on after a windows update… to get it to the login screen to then allow me to RDP in.
Thoughts/comments?