You can power on a Mac remotely

> Three decades later, with the release of macOS 26.5, Apple caught up: you can finally set your Mac to 'Always' boot whenever power is restored, regardless of how it was shut down.

Back in the 1990s, a Mac sysadmin showed me a clever trick for this.

Get one specific Apple Desktop Bus keyboard that has a soft power key on it, I believe the Apple Extended Keyboard[1]. Then get a Bic pen[2]. Push down the power key on the keyboard, and while it's still down, wedge the pen cap between the key and the keyboard case.

The pen cap is the perfect size and shape to hold the key down, and Bic pens are easy to find. There are no ill effects from having the power key down all the time, and the Mac will boot up after a power failure. So you don't have to drive to work just to push the power button.

This was especially handy considering you sometimes needed to use Macs as servers (file server, printing, certain Mac-only applications, etc.), but Apple did not make servers.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Extended_Keyboard

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bic_Cristal

Xserve had LOM hardware 20 years ago.

  LOM enables power management even if the Xserve is off, and even if it lacks an installed operating system.

Edit: Xserve was an Apple rack mounted server that ran a special version of Mac OS X

This is an aside, but I really hate clickbait culture. You can find it anywhere, but the YouTube video embedded in that page is a really good example.

The title is: "Apple FINALLY lets you do this!"

The thumbnail shows someone plugging in (or unplugging) the power cable from a Mac Mini.

Neither is relevant to the video. Neither tells you what it's about. I'm sure this kind of clickbait works, because otherwise it wouldn't exist, but I am never going to click on that kind of slop. Never.

Still a shame macOS doesn't support full Wake-on-LAN. This holds me back from properly repurposing my M1 Mac Mini as a remote development machine or CI/CD agent with turning it on and off via WoL+SSH.

It hurts even more to see the "turn power on whenever power is detected" feature is locked to Mac hardware from 2024 or newer. I don't see a reason why not all Apple Silicon machines can support this feature.

Correct me if you have more experience, but I have mostly avoided using smart plugs for computers because the PSU capacitors generate a large inrush current which tends to weld the relay contacts over time, causing the plugs to fail prematurely. Maybe ok in a power loss scenario, but not good to use for remote waking regularly...

I vaguely recall wake on lan actually worked with macs... but when powered on by an airport/airport extreme.

I might be wrong.

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