Add Xbox as a device and notify if turned on

Has anyone successfully added an Xbox as a device? I did find the "Boot Me Up Scottie" driver and implemented it. It works. But that doesn't take me to where I'm trying to go. I'm looking for a way to know when my son turns on his Xbox. Once on, send me a notification if he has been on for 2 consecutive hours. Has anyone done anything like this?

Maybe put it on a power monitoring outlet?

This is just a theory but you would possibly use a wifi presence sensor to monitor it's fixed IP and react to the "presence" of the Xbox?

I use [UPDATED] iPhone WiFi Presence Sensor for my phones. Another avenue for investigation is the [RELEASE] Web Pinger (it monitors URLs so unsure it can check Local IPs) but that can activate/deactivate a virtual switch when a disconnection occurs.

Again, these are just theoretical suggestions. Maybe somebody has a more concrete idea and can share how they do it. @aaiyar's suggestion is a fool proof way!

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Im not doing that. but with my PS4 i have some automations working for when its on and for when it goes into rest mode. a power monitoring outlet is what i would suggest. you can set it up with some boolean logic pretty easy (happy to help). then you tell it when its above a certain wattage that its ON and when it falls below that its OFF. then you can do whatever notifications you want. Im 100% sure we can make it work that way.

Yeah it's looking more and more like a power monitoring plug is going to end up having to be the route I take for this which I was hoping to avoid. Only because I didn't want to spend anymore money on anymore devices right now. The IP address thing is what really had me curious because I can use a WOL driver as it stands now. And if I can do that, I figured there must be some way to know whether it's on or not or that the IP has traffic running to it thus telling me it's on.

You'd need data from a managed switch for that.

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well i got a V1 iris outlet on ebay for 2.99 USD. and used that. you can get the V2 plugs that @aaiyar says are better for about 20 ish dollars. so not a big spend.

Depending on what you want to acheive, why not convert his account to a child account and set restrictions on what he can do.

This is what I do with my son. He's allowed to play for so long, and it stops. If he wants more time he sends a request. I get an email that he's requesting more time. I either approve or deny based on how much extra time. You can pick things like 15 minutes, 30 minutes, etc.

I can also allocate funds to his account if he wants to purchase stuff.

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Funny you mention this because I'm actually looking at that right now as we speak. He is already on my family account as a child. The only thing that I can see though is a schedule. Meaning, he's allowed to play within a certain time frame for which I would set. The time frame isn't a concern at all for me. I'm still digging around in there to see if where I could allocate number of hours he's allowed.

You can restrict based on applications too.

Scratch that. I just found it. This would probably be the better approach.

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For the notifications, how are they received? Is it an email? An app you are using?

Email.

That's the only downside that I have for this method. Functionality wise it's great but I'd much rather get a push notification of this. This will certainly suffice for now though so thanks for the tips on this method. I at least have something in place for now.

I would suggest using a plug then.

Hey ... do you have harmony?
The harmony integration creates a virtual switch that you can easily trigger a rule from. So .. if you have harmony -
I use these switches for just that and for lights.
UGHHH ... I see that it's for your son. - so make cool things happen like lights dim, etc so he thinks it's cool and will use it.
I believe that there are parental controls in the playstation app that will do the same. I could explore when I get home.

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if you only care about the notifications, I'd follow @BlackCatPeanut's suggestion and see if you can easily ping the IP to see if it's running or not A'la iOS/Android for that presence sensor.

I do this for my Roku TV using a different community app. I have it check every 5 minutes if it's on or off to set specific lighting scenes.

This is definitely something I'm exploring. If I come across something, I'll post it in here to show how I did it.

Do you have Alexa's in the house? They have a skill. Quite possibly you could then set up what you need through an Alexa routine?

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I actually do have Alexa all throughout the house but my ultimate goal is get as far away from cloud as possible. I just set things up via Microsoft's family functions but am currently exploring the ping local IP method now.

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