TP-Link - Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug Mini - White

The HS105 turns any of your standard devices into a "Smart" device. Once you start using this, you will quickly see the benefits. This is especially apparent if you own an Amazon Alexa device (echo/dot). The build quality is very good. It is sturdy and certainly doesn't feel flimsy or cheap. The design of this product is where it really shines. One of the biggest complaints of most Smart Plugs is there bulky size which in turn means that they often cover/obstruct more than one power outlet. I was pleased to find that TP-Link has overcome this issue with this newly designed Smart Plug. What's more impressive is how simple the solution was – making a wider Smart Plug, instead of a taller Smart Plug! Good move TP-Link! Since this is considerably smaller, I was worried that the range (distance away from the Wi-Fi router) would be affected. I had no issues, and I was able to plug this device a reasonable distance away from my Wi-Fi router. The scheduling aspect is great! There are a lot of variables you can set. Time (hours and minutes, am/pm), switch action (on or off), and repeat (days of week - you can select one individual day, every day, or a combination of days). A programmed event requires two "events" in the app, a switch action "on" and a switch action "off". This is useful if you have a routine with turning on/off a device in your home. Some uses I have for this HS105 are for lamps, entertainment units, irons, fans or just about anything you want to conveniently turn on/off or set timers for. Overall this is a fantastic Smart Plug that works flawlessly. This review was submitted as part of a free sample program.

This product is an example of a simple product that has limited cost effective uses. It is a single plug that uses a single existing port, so it can be used to effectively turns one plug into a "smart plug." I used this to add "smarts" to my Christmas tree lights, and I found telling Google to turn on my Christmas tree and remotely turning it on and off when away from home to be entertaining. The TP-Link products do not require a hub, and their products work with Google Home (Alexa too probably, but not tested). The app has been reliable so far, and adding the plug to its ecosystem is relatively easy. Once set up, porting the plug to Google Home was also easy, and the plug can be assigned to a room just like their wall switches. If the assigned name of the item plugged in includes "light," Google will turn this item on and off when the "turn on the lights" command is used. Unfortunately, i am not sure what uses a smart plug might have to justify the costs. It is less expensive to replace the bulb in a table lamp with a smart bulb, and the smart bulb has more options even it is not a color bulb. I have had a hard time justifying turning on a kitchen appliance remotely for safety reasons, and starting a coffee maker in the morning presumes it was set up the night before. Someone could theoretically use it to control power to systems remotely, such as powering down a TV in a child's room to control TV time at night, though even a young child would be able to quickly work around the locks by removing the plug as an interface. Overall, the plug works, but it needs to be much cheaper to be worth adding to a smart house in large quantities. A smart replacement wall duplex plug at closer to this price would be better since it would not stick out from the wall and would at least include two plugs.

There are two parts to this product. It is a wireless Wi-Fi extended and it is also a smart plug. The electric plug is managed through wifi. TP-LINK Kasa App available in all the app stores allows you to remotely (not physical interaction) manage any device (on/off) attached to this plug. I setup the app in about 2 minutes. Probably 2 or 3 taps in the app is that is required, rest of the time is taken by the app to basically discover the devices, connect to them and setting up themselves to manage those devices. Really simple, intuitive and fairly quick. There is also a "scene" functionality. This is quite interesting. Basically, you can create a customs scene, say a "Movie watching" scene. In this scene you can set all light adapters to off and only one ambient light adapter to be on. So if you tap that scene, all lights turn on/off appropriately in one tap. This is pretty cool. I can only visualize the idea behind it as I had just one adapter to check the functionality. You can also set the app in away mode which will allow you to operate the plug even when you are away. For example you could turn the lights on in your house during night time when you are away to simulate presence in the house. The app also integrates with Alexa which means that Alexa can learn to use the app to manage the devices. So, you can talk to alexa which talks to Kasa and manages the devices. The second part of this device is the Wi-Fi extender. This is similar to the AC2600 Wi-Fi extender available with TP-Link. I have used this product and I can tell you that they have fixed a bunch of issues on the AC2600 with the AC1200 range extender with smart plug. I could setup the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies in one pass (the AC2600 has many issues in setup). There are quite a few controls such as a access controls that you can set regarding which devices can access the extender. However, one big con is that performance through the extender drops like a stone in water. In my house, I could get only 50% of the performance with an extender as compared to direct Wi-Fi. That is some serious performance overhead there in this device. But then, the purpose of this device is to provide better performance than a connection with just a single band of signal. The KASA app also allows you to control the extender functionality completely over the cloud when you are away from home or using local Wi-Fi when you are in. Everything works like a charm. I would recommend this product where you are looking to make your home smart and at the same time trying to get some wifi extensions going in your backyard or something like that. Submitted as part of a free sample program There is another major con. There is a significant reduction in performance when you compare to connecting to an extended vs direct Wi-Fi. In the case of the AC1200

This one is a home-run ! The TP-Link HS105 Smart Wi-Fi Plug is a perfect solution for remotely controlling any device that you would plug into a standard 120volt wall socket. It is a perfect size, so it does not block the second wall plug, and two HS105's will even fit side-by-side in a standard dual plug wall outlet. Installation and setup takes less than 5 minutes. You simply download the TP-Link KASA APP to your iPhone or Android device, plug the HS105 into an outlet, and then launch the KASA Application and follow the simple prompts to configure the Wi-Fi plug to operate to any schedule that you may want. It also works with the Amazon Alexa, further simplifying your remote control options. I have used two of these to control the scheduling of on/off times for two cabinet light sets that plug in to separate outlets on either side of my fireplace. We have a lot of power interruptions where I live, and my old rotary timers were always getting out of synch with each other, in addition to always needing to be re-set after power outages. The two power outlets are in the lowest cabinets and back on the wall - a real pain to get to. This is NO LONGER A PROBLEM! With the lights plugged into the HS105's, I just set the schedules, and they run perfectly, correcting to the actual time based on my wireless router's time which updates automatically when power is restored. Disclaimer: Submitted as part of a free sample program I will be buying a few sets of HS105's for the Christmas season. I have the same synching and remote on/off scheduling problems in multiple locations when the Holiday lights are out. It will be very nice to be able to control all of those to any schedule that I want from the comfort of my chair (or bed) ! I haven't tried the Away Mode and remote scheduling feature the HS105's while traveling yet, but this is clearly a very handy feature that I plan to use. All in all, I am very satisfied with these programmable plugs, and I highly recommend them!

I would 100% recommend this plug to anyone looking to add voice-control on/off capabilities to any "non-smart" device- from lights, to small appliances, to TVs. Set-up is a breeze, and it syncs with Google Home and Amazon Echo devices without any issues. The scheduling features are great too, as you can put a sleep timer on a device, or set a device to turn on/off at a certain time for each day of the week, or the same time every day. The plug does make a clicking noise when it's switched on and off, but I actually don't mind that- in a troubleshooting case, it indicates to me that the switch portion of the plug is working. The only downside I can really think of is that when plugged into a power strip, the plug may block other outlets, but that's pretty typical for most smart plugs I've considered. For me personally, I bought the plug for an older TV- I stream media with Chromecast, but I had to use the TV remote for power, as the TV doesn't support HDMI-CEC. As with most people, I'm pretty good at misplacing remotes, so there was always a minute or two of "where's the remote?!" Now, I can control everything on the TV with the Google Assistant, either with voice or through the Home app. The plug also worked well for my parents to add voice-control capabilities to their Christmas tree lights, as the outlet and switch were in pretty hard to reach places behind the tree. Now, they can just tell Alexa to turn on the Christmas tree instead of fumbling to reach the outlets.

I have all the lights in the house connected with the Philips Hue bulbs and app on my cell phone to control them through Alexa or just use my cell phone to turn them off and on if not at home. You could use your cell phone alone, if you don't have Alexa or Google Assist. You can do the same with these plugs...use their app or connect the app to Alexa or Google Assist. I have a floor lamp that has multiple small bulbs and the cost would have been pretty high for individual smart bulbs, if that size are even available in smart bulbs. I bought a set of two of these smart plugs and put them both to good use. This past Christmas I plugged in the Christmas tree to one of the plugs and the floor lamp got plugged into the other one. When I wanted to turn the Christmas tree on or off, all I had to do was say "Alexa, turn on Christmas tree" or "Alexa, turn off Christmas tree". It is nice not to have to bend down behind the tree and unplug it and plug it back in to turn it off and on. With the floor lamp, all I have to do is say, "Alexa, turn on floor lamp" or "Alexa, turn off floor lamp". This would be a great way to start on your way to a smart house to see if you like the idea of turning lights on and off with just your voice instead of a switch. Start small and if you like it go big. Working toward a smart house is pretty addictive.

The HS105 turns any of your standard devices into a "Smart" device. Once you start using this, you will quickly see the benefits. This is especially apparent if you own an Amazon Alexa device (echo/dot). The build quality is very good. It is sturdy and certainly doesn't feel flimsy or cheap. The design of this product is where it really shines. One of the biggest complaints of most Smart Plugs is there bulky size which in turn means that they often cover/obstruct more than one power outlet. I was pleased to find that TP-Link has overcome this issue with this newly designed Smart Plug. What's more impressive is how simple the solution was – making a wider Smart Plug, instead of a taller Smart Plug! Good move TP-Link! Since this is considerably smaller, I was worried that the range (distance away from the Wi-Fi router) would be affected. I had no issues, and I was able to plug this device a reasonable distance away from my Wi-Fi router. The scheduling aspect is great! There are a lot of variables you can set. Time (hours and minutes, am/pm), switch action (on or off), and repeat (days of week - you can select one individual day, every day, or a combination of days). A programmed event requires two "events" in the app, a switch action "on" and a switch action "off". This is useful if you have a routine with turning on/off a device in your home. Some uses I have for this HS105 are for lamps, entertainment units, irons, fans or just about anything you want to conveniently turn on/off or set timers for. Overall this is a fantastic Smart Plug that works flawlessly. This review was submitted as part of a free sample program.

I bought four Wemo Minis on the strength of a CNET review, but was completely frustrated by the effort to set them up. After six exasperating hours I admitted defeat and swapped them for five TP_Link HS-105s and some change. The first one was up and going in five minutes and does exactly what it's supposed to, including remembering its settings through power failures and moving from one outlet to another. All the others set up as smoothly. Google Assistant didn't want to talk to them initially, but we learned the verbal command had to include "the" (name of plug) as in "Hey Google, please turn on THE Christmas Tree" instead of "HG turn on Christmas Tree" which would beget "Sorry, I don't know how to do that". I'm pretty sure that's not a TP_Link problem! I'd have given the HS-105 five stars without the Wemo Mini experience, but I probably would not have bothered to review it, simply assuming these things all work as they are advertised. That's not what I discovered! Consequently I have reviewed both products and hope the accounts of my experience with them are helpful to you. Best regards...