Just thought I’d share
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So, how do you control the WiFi smart plug if your WiFi is down? Or, do you mean when the Internet connection is down?
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A lot of people conflate "WiFi" with the "Internet".
My uncle does this a lot:
him - "there is a problem with my WiFi - it's not working!"
me - "is it showing as connected on your laptop?"
him - "yes full bars."
me - "your internet is down NOT WiFi....."
Having a WiFi plug could be useful if you had some sort of server that could detect an internet outage and then send a reboot to the router via the plug. Assuming that is the real issue of course. I haven't had to reboot my "router" device in a very long time even through internet outages.
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Ok, I get it. I guess I needed to have another cup of coffee to wake up!
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They make those, smart plugs that auto restart when there’s no WiFi
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Who was it that in the last couple weeks announced "Rebooter" or some variation of that name. I think the idea was that you'd need wi-fi to trigger the power off but not the power on a minute or so later. Or maybe it detected loss of Internet connectivity.
I may be married to your uncle! Oh wait, that's my wife and I having the same conversation.
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It is kinda cute... 
On the other hand, neither my wife nor my mother care about or even know what a Wi-Fi smart plug is. My wife probably could not point to the router if asked, and would simply poke me (rather than the router or cable modem) if she lost Wi-Fi or the internet. My mom is 90 so I definitely cut her a lot of slack, but my wife just willfully ignores this stuff.
So from my perspective you have a pretty impressive mom. Please tell her I send kudos her way for thinking about this and trying to be independent and proactive!
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i have kasa wifi plugs (tplink) they are one of the few i found that restore to last state on power failiure..
also for my wifi routers etc. i have them on a separate wifi throuigh an at&t access pt. that costs me 20 extra per month so i can reboot the main cable etc. Obviously I also have the kasa att access pt on one but on th emain wifi network.
Perhaps she upgraded to a Zigbee based hub and it was a Zigbee smart plug. Food for thought.
The initial situation is pretty funny.
But on a "There is a solution" note, the Zen25 Zwave outlet does have a feature that it can automatically turn itself on after a preset time if it is turned off. This could be used for the situation your mom was trying to solve for - With the automatic "turn back on" configured for, e.g., a minute, you would turn off the plug to the router, a minute later it would turn itself back on and the router would then restart.
I really laughed at this.
People are funny.
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I have an early version of this one. If it can't ping a well known site, it restarts the modem/router. Haven't used it much lately.
