Comment by FussyZeus

A good example would be the smart outlet ones, so I could for example setup one to automatically power cycle my cable modem and router, or even one that could handle the load of a space heater I keep in my office during the winter months and switch it on 15 minutes before I get home. I don't even need the ability to manage it over the WAN, I'd be fine with just something my linux boxes at home could handle with cron jobs.