I have the VFD, controller, and vacuum on independent smart plugs. I did this so I could monitor power draw. I just added an automation in Home Assistant that, when the spindle goes below 0.4 amps, the plug for the vacuum turns off. When it goes above 0.6amp, the vacuum turns on. This way, I no longer need to turn the vacuum off and on between tool changes. It’s working very well and It’s nice not having the extra noise and power consumption.
It would be nice if an API were exposed in Carbide Motion.
I’ll go slightly off topic and say I’ve had issues with worries vacuums enabling and disabling from what I assume is emi. I woke up one too many times to a shop vac running and decided to fix that.
If you end up having a similar issue, I’d highly recommend the z-wave protocol. For high draw appliances like small motors and compressors I’ve been using these for a couple of years: ZOOZ ZEN15 POWER SWITCH – ZOOZ
The zooz stuff tends to integrate seamlessly with home assistant in my experience.
(I generally recommend z-wave over zigbee for whatever you can find but there are plenty of things that are only made with zigbee. Hopefully matter/thread becomes more prevalent in time)
Z-wave is better. I agree. They run on 900mhz, so they don’t congest the 2.4 band. It also means they go further. That wouldn’t have any impact on plugs randomly going on/off, though. The plugs I have are zigbee. I haven’t had trouble yet.
I also have an automation to turn off other unnecessary things in the garage when the router is turned on. I was tripping the breaker before.