RemoteBoot was a Kickstarter project which I ran in 2016, when I ran into the frustration of having to leave my computer on all day to be able to remotely access it, having no way of powering it on remotely. Thus, I came up with the idea of RemoteBoot, a module fitting into any desktop computer that allows for remote turn on and monitoring over WiFi.

Picture of the RemoteBoot

This device consists of a WiFi module (ESP8266), transistors for turning the computer on and off, as well as optoisolators to enable LED monitoring. The firmware was written in C++, with a Javascript web UI, along with a PHP based cloud management interface.

This Kickstarter project was extremely successful, raising AU$17,589 from 431 backers, with 1000 units manufactured in Shenzhen and successfully delivered to all backers. This project was also covered by some engineering youtubers, such as Dave Jones from the EEVBlog.

The over 800 devices in use today save significant amounts of energy worldwide, which to date have saved over 600MWh of energy, and reduced CO2 emissions by over 400 tons.