Home Automation – WiFi Smart Plug

Welcome to the world of automating your lights at home.

It was easy

Easy and relatively inexpensive. Especially, if you consider using a smart plug without Alexa. To be clear, I was searching for a WiFi enabled outlet switch which works with Alexa — and, yes… it could just as well have been a “Google Home Mini” to be able to turn on a couple of lights in my house.

WiFi Smart Plug – packing, docs

First, a bit of perspective — the “Home Automation” market is burgeoning with new options everyday… and more generally, the “Internet of Things”, or IoT means we have a network location (IP Address) for everything from refrigerators and light bulbs to security cameras and door locks. And now, with examples like smart thermostats, and voice enabled “assistants” for the home we can connect devices over a wireless network WiFi — it’s easy, and convenient, and provides real and very practical benefits.

An Alexa gift at Christmas time (2017) was $30 — and, adding a couple of outlet switches was another $25. And, although a wall switch was really what I had started looking for, when I saw a Leviton brand for almost $60 – I hesitated. As mentioned already we have an Alexa; or to use her full name, “Amazon Echo Dot”. The regular price is probably $50, but just before Christmas last year both the Amazon and Google competitive devices at the entry level were dropped to $30. While both companies offer a more capable (i.e. better quality audio) option for $130 – $150. I was curious to see how much value can be gained from the least expensive devices.

Back to the “Smart Plug” — because you maybe hadn’t considered voice enabled home appliance control and just wanted a network switch; then a Smart Plug outlet switch is a good start. Compared with the WeMo I tried out ten years ago, this Smart Plug is nicer form factor and probably a quarter of the price.

There’s an App

You are hopefully not surprised that a Smart Phone is required to setup and configure the Smart Plug. Smart things go together, it’s poetry. With the smart things connected it was quite easy to setup a schedule, and have a light, or other small appliance come on at certain times, or by your smart phone by remote control.

But yeah, by the way … I was also pleased that it works with Alexa! The integration between the WiFi Smart Plug and Alexa is done very well. There are a few steps along the way which might get a bit tricky, but especially after you’ve done it once, the process is easy and direct… and, it just works.

The benefit of Alexa (or, a Google Home) is that you don’t have to open your app, and fumble with the buttons or an App’s user interface — you just say, “Alexa, turn on the Table Lamp.”

There are certainly more complicated voice instruction options, but if you give each Smart Plug a simple name… the initial on / off commands will feel like a great success.

With the exception of my “read the fine print, below” the setup and use of the WiFi Smart Plug was easy – it really was. And, although the instructions which came in the box were tiny (I mean, get out a magnifying glass — but, you’re probably young anyway or you wouldn’t be using such a Smart Plug?) the steps were really, just 1, 2, 3 and you’re done!

Here’s a link, in case you hadn’t already Googled or Amazon’d your way to the device yourself.

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Postscript:

One final comment, only because we have enable our Linksys “Mac ID filtering” on our home WiFi the initial steps to recognize the new Smart Plug failed; and, we had to disable the Mac Filtering to allow any IP into our home network. That worked fine, because the first two outlet switches connect… then, the Mac Addr appears in the list and I can copy them into the list allowed for filtering. It was quick, and just meant a bit of a detour while initially doing the setup.

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