TP-Link Smart Wi-Fi Plug with Energy Monitoring Review

[Greg S]

Smart home assistants are quickly gaining traction among consumers and as a result, so are their smart home accessories. To go along with an Amazon Echo Dot, I picked up a pair of the TP-Link HS110 Smart Wi-Fi Plugs that can be used for remote control of devices from anywhere that you have an internet connection.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/news/72774-tp-link-smart-wi-fi-plug-energy-monitoring.html

 

[Uncle Al]

Lots of money spent for the simple act of walking across the room and turning the lamp on or off. Don't think I'll ever get to that point of being lazy until I'm stuck in a wheelchair .....

 

[senketsu]

In the last photo, the device looks like it was designed to go into the lower of the two plugs. The shape of the device then covers the outlet beneath in a more aesthetic way, and since the other plug runs off the same circuit having the plug covered keeps you from putting any more draw on that circuit.

 

[stewi0001]

I got one of these for Christmas. It is one of the few IOT devices that I do not mind having since if it ever gets hacked, I can easily remove it and all I have it connected to is a lamp. For giggles, I renamed the device to "me." So now when I want to turn on the lights I say, "Alexa, turn me on."

 

[HankB]

There are a couple more benefits to this smart plug. First ad perhaps most important, it supports OTA upgrades to the firmware. If some vulnerability is found in the existing firmware, TP-Link can provide an upgrade. Unfortunately this is not automatic. The user must go into the Kasa app and request upgrades.

A second benefit is that there is Python code that can be found on Github that communicates directly with the HS100/HS110. Hackers can program their own solutions which use this device. Another benefit is that if the cloud presence gets shut down, the device can still be used.

One drawback is the seeming bugginess of the Kasa app. I tried to rename one of my devices and got a diagnostic that states "Setting name failed. Account is not binded to this device." This is puzzling as the device otherwise behaves properly.

 

[Badelhas]

I have bought one of these thinking I could transform my Ar Conditioner into a "smart" hoje, allowing me to turn it on while I was going home so that my home could be warm when I got there (Samsung sells this kind of ACs but they cost at least 200 euros more than the normal ones). There´s only one problem: the Ar Conditioner doesn't turn on unless you press the power button on the remote control. Very stupid of me to forget this "little" detail, so my HS100 is in a drawer.
Does anybody have an idea on how I could solve my issue? Because otherwise I agree with the review, it works great.

Cheers

 

[Joe Blow]

NSA spy device. Guaranteed!

 

[NotLazy]

Lots of money spent for the simple act of walking across the room and turning the lamp on or off. Don't think I'll ever get to that point of being lazy until I'm stuck in a wheelchair .....

Did you read the whole review, or just figured that this is simply a socket adapter that lets you just turn things off & on with your phone?

This device has way more features than that. Have you ever used a socket timer when you go on vacation to control some lights? This device does that but better. Not only can you set a schedule, you can set it when you're not even home - like if you forgot to do it before you left or want to change it. It actually even has a special away mode which will randomize the light, so it's not obviously being controlled by a timer.

This device also has energy monitoring built into it. If you want to check to see which appliances and devices are your big drains, this allows you figure that out.

You get all this in one device, and none of is about being lazy. What is lazy though is making such a comment either unaware of or ignoring these features. I don't think I'll ever get that lazy, period.