Remote operation

i was wondering about remote operation of my r1+
I recently bought a smart power plug that I can control from my phone to turn the printer on and off when I'm away. Trouble is it randomly cuts power and comes back on a second later. I'm not sure if this is because of a glitch in the wifi signal or the printer is drawing too much power. I wanted to get a webcam and use this smart plug so I could monitor my long prints from work. Is there a better way to do this? Or is there a smart plug that would work better? I've heard people using the rasberry pi software but I'm not sure how that works but I'm sure I could do some research on how to use it. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

Smart plug idea is nice, but... not with a crappy one It should not do random cuts.

 

Thanks for the replies, yes I figured octopi is what I would be going toward... I've had this fear ever since a roommate told me that he read on the net that they could cause fires, although I have never heard of a robo doing so and I don't really think it would under normal circumstances. The prints I want to do are long and I just can't be there all the time. I like the smoke detector idea. It's weird but there's not one smoke detector in my apartment to alert anyone. The super lives next door.
The worst case scenario I've encountered was the extruder clogging and it just printed nothing when I got up in the morning. Have any of you used octopi for long prints without anxiety? Lol

 

Ok well I might need some help in time when I purchase what I need for this. I'm not a total newbie when it comes to computers but still, it sounds a little daunting. I looked at the other thread that you started Waldo about raspian image and it seems a bit involved. I need the software which I see is free and the raspberry pi 2 or 3 it seems... I guess I'll keep researching what comes after that. But yes I may need help. Thanks guys! I was hoping to keep it simple lol I'm already involved in trying to learn fusion 360 which is a bit of a learning curve, not to mention fine tuning my printer which I think I may have gotten to a good point. But I do love 3D printing. Just wish I could plug my brain in and download everything so I could know it all in a few minutes! But I guess we would all like that.

Thanks again @mark and waldo

 

Wow! I thought it would be more complicated than that from what I was reading... Great! I'm on it!

Thanks again Waldo, Mark