OTish "gizmo" to to turn off/on lights with PC

X 10 products also sold under radio Shacks Plug in power smart home and others use X10 protical . You could easily use wall timers with variable on off and digtal wall timers and save computer running power. X10 - Radio shack probably also sells a stand alone timer to control banks of lights even exterior motion sensing lights, and wall switch-dimmers and apliance modules. I use them for remote on - off, on exterior-interior even from standard built in 3 button car garage door openers and hand held units. You can control exerything with X10. Leutron, etc use the same protical but Radio shack is cheaper. I even control fan speeds on my remote.

Cheapest solution: use appliance timers more flexibility: look into X10 products. You can get started for

I sell several options. X10 would not be my first choice. I use product called Zwave. No need to plug anything into PC the remote has a burglar detterant built in.

zwave is *alot* more expensive than X10. (lamp moduals are about 10Xs the price 45 vrs ~$4 (on sale)) I might be interested in zwave if the per unit price gets under $20/unit. It has some nice features, but for a non "critical" event like this... i still would consider using the old manual appliance timers. (hint: plug one into another and feed lamps off of both to get a less "repeated" routine.)

It's all about the amount of money you want to spend.

I almost did this last year because last time I looked at timers in home improvement stores, Intermatic (the major brand) still did not make anything except those timers with the little pegs you pull out or push in. Now, though, they've got quite a few digital versions, both wall mount and freestanding, with the ability to randomize the on/off times. You might want to look at those before leaving your computer running constantly.