The Chinese are amazing people.
So I bought various things at the dealexteme.com store. Many of them broke, mostly the no-name stuff. But the ones from Chinese brands, on the contrary, are cheap and work well. Flashlights, batteries, chargers and whatnot.
But the remote-controlled power socket switch behaves exceptionally strangely.
https://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.12902
This is the second time this has happened. It clicks, cuts the power to all connected devices, and then stops working. Take it apart, put it back together — it works again. The build quality is poor, so it's clear why it breaks. But why does it start working again afterwards ?
A mystery.