FaceTime yourself to help with electrical work

If you have an iPad and an iPhone, did you know you can actually FaceTime yourself? Why in all hell would you WANT to do this? If you do a lot of electrical work in your house alone, it’s a HUGE help. Turning off the breakers one by one trying to figure out which is the one powering that wall outlet is an athletic chore of running to the breaker box, flipping a switch, and coming back to see if that was “The One”. Or even if you’ve got help and have done this before, you know how tedious it can get shouting “That one?” “no” “That one?!” “NO!” as you go through the breakers.

Sure, you could use a breaker finder, but instead, try this: Open FaceTime on your iPhone, call yourself, and answer the call on the iPad. Then put the iPad under a light plugged into the outlet you’re working on like this:
facetime-ipad-electrical

Carry the iPhone to the breaker box, flip off one at a time, and you’ll see instantly when the light goes off!
facetime-yourself-electrical

Posted by Matt Chiste
April 11
One comment on “FaceTime yourself to help with electrical work
  1. Jon Graft says:

    Awesome tip! I started doing this recently. Note to cat owners: your cat will sit right in front of the iPad’s camera so you can’t see if the light turns on or off.

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