PiCap and Home Automation

[lunchour]

I am in the design stage for a simple house outline project that will run 365 days a year. I will space pixels 6" apart under the eves with the hope to get a nice subdued wall wash in warm white for most days. Plan to use a Pi3 & PiCap for 150 pixels split across the 2 channels for control. The question is how to have my VeraLite home automation hub power the pixels along with the rest of my house. My initial thought is to wire the 12v power supply that powers the pixels using a smart outlet and leave the Pi3 and PiCap powered up and running on separate power. Will this work? Any damage to the power supply or pixels? Is there a better method I haven't thought of? Thanks for your input.

[1pet2_9]

Smart outlets usually let you program a timer into them on your cell phone. You can put your Pi to sleep on that timer, and add a crontab @reboot sequence on your Pi to launch your show, and another crontab to do a nice shutdown. I've done entire Christmas seasons using that.

[lunchour]

Thanks, i will look into that approach.

[CaptainMurdoch]

It should not cause any issues to power off the pixels and leave the Pi powered on.

[lunchour]

Thanks. the concern is cutting power to the power supply

[1pet2_9]

JMHO, but if the Pi goes into a funk, it's good to reboot it every night and have its bootup sequence start afresh. If you're running a Pi4, though (not a Pi3), I am more adamant about it. Pi4's run a bit hot. They need the downtime.