Tasmota

Pros

• You'd probably want to look at Tasmota/ESPhome flashed smart plugs, or Shelly.
• Have a look at Tasmota, it ca do all you want, they have thermostat already build in firmware no need to reinvent the wheel.
• Pretty much anything esp32 or esp8266 based can be flashed to open source firmware such as WLED or Tasmota or ESPhome
• For mine I had a remote with it, and wired into the remote to control it with an esp8266 and Tasmota.
• If yes you could flash it with another firmware like Tasmota.

Cons

• Put a relay on the power input and control it with a esp chip setup with esphome or tasmota.
• flash with tasmota when your ready, otherwise good luck!
• I saw something on CloudFree's website about Tasmota, which I'm not familiar with, suggesting that some of their bulbs would need their firmware replaced before they would support more than a few base colors
• You could flash a lightbulb or switch or relay module with Tasmota which is configured to turn on a light when the PC is responding to pings
• Mine are all on the same network, plugs running Tasmota and speaking to HA via MQTT.