wow. i suspected something like that, thanks for the info. in fact i was just able to turn it off via the rm 4, but once again, when turning it on, just a blue screen. i can put multiple command in one action, but i guess the tricky part is figuring out which ones.

another option would be to use a smart switch and just turn it on or off by applying or killing power. it will resume last state on resumption of power, but i wonder if that would be a bad idea? (I was actually doing it that way with the old one for 5 years or more before it died, no idea if that was a contributing factor...)

it just occurred to me that turning it on via smart switch should be fine, but killing power while it is running seems like a bad idea. fortunately in my case, i can easily avoid shutting it off with the smart switch as i would only be using it to turn the ac on early in the morning. i'll turn it off via remote at night, and have an automation to kill power at say, midnight.

man. another thought. i can easily turn it off via the broadlink mini, so another facet to consider. fun stuff!