I’m guessing the answer’s going to be ‘Don’t’ but does anyone know of any reason that would make connecting the Glowforge to a remote controlled socket a bad idea? The plug socket for the forge is in a really awkward spot. It’s only on when I’m in the room but it’d be great to be able to turn it on / off without lying down and clambering around the bench each time.
It won’t be officially supported… but, this is BTM 
Several people are doing this and it’s been discussed a fair amount. One of the concerns is that at peak draw, it bumps up to or exceeds the current limit on some of the smart switches - so you’ll want to make sure that the switch can handle the load.
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BTM? You’ve lost me on that one dude - I googled it an everthinks!
Yeh, load was a worry as the other device I’m going to wire up is the booster fan. Do we know what, ish, the GF draws at peak btw?
Beyond the Manual. 
Peak is rated at 700 watts.
Over here on our 120v system, that’s just under 6amps. Are you on 230v? That should be about 3amps.
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{facepalm} of course it is…
Yep we are, and the sockets I was looking at handle 2900 watts, so they’d be no issue. Awesome, thanks JB!
A side note, but the GF does have a mechanical power switch on the back. You do not need to turn off the receptacle at the wall - US outlets don’t even have switches.
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Heh, yeh I know. My forge is on a giant roll-out drawer, so it’s a bit tight to reach in behind it. It’s not a massive issue for the forge, it is a massive issue for the blower fan which is under the forge, behind a giant kick board in a crawl space…! But, I get two power blocks in the kit so I might as well use them both
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One caveat – be sure to get a smart socket you really trust. I used Wemo to control my 3D printer until it evidenced a tendency to turn itself off randomly during 20-hour prints.
There are quite a few people using Alexa or Google to turn their units on via various remote socket ecosystems, with no reported problems.
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Fair point - just not sure I trust Amazon or Google with quite that much power, literally and figuratively. They already have enough hooks in my life 
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OK, so another side note, seeing as we’re “BTM” - I have mine plugged into one of those 4’ long power strips with a dozen or so outlets. I’ve had them in my workshops for years and find they are generally better made, and have minimal, if any, voltage/power loss compared to “regular” consumer power strips.
I’ve had some issues with my GF occasionally “restarting” during startup, so to eliminate the strip as a potential weak spot, I ran it plugged in directly for a while, and the restarts still occurred. So I use the strip - which is attached to the rolling workbench that the GF currently resides upon.
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