Spent $75 on a 'smart' surge protector that bricked my modem

I picked up one of those Wi-Fi controlled power strips last month, thinking it would be great for turning off my office gear at night. It worked fine for a few days, then during a small power flicker, it completely failed to protect anything. My cable modem was fried and wouldn't turn back on. The replacement cost me $75, so I'm out $150 total for a product that did the opposite of its job. I should have just stuck with my old, basic surge protector. Has anyone else had a smart home gadget fail in a way that caused more damage?

3 comments

3 Comments

casey_barnes2mo ago

Yeah, that really sucks, and while Olivia_webb has a point about lemons, it's still your gear that got fried.

olivia_webb2mo ago

Couldn't it just be a bad unit? My smart plug has handled a few outages fine, so maybe you got a lemon. Sometimes tech just fails randomly.

mila_craig41mo ago

Olivia you said "my smart plug has handled a few outages fine" but surge protectors have a one-time job and they can fail silently after just one big surge. A few small flickers might not test it the same way a bigger spike does, so yours could be damaged and you wouldn't even know until it's too late. It's not just about getting a lemon, sometimes the protection circuitry just burns out after doing its thing and then you're stuck with a dead outlet.