Kasa Smart

I started with the little 2 pack starter kit and used this with my power strip to turn it on at night and off in the morning when I am not here. This power strip only charges my phone, watch and iPad most nights, but I have also had my xbox controllers charger and sometimes other things connected to the strip. It saves electricity instead of having the strip plugged in all the time. I also have a strip for my xbox, tv, and headset charger. I have now bought more of these smart plugins and use them to turn off other tvs and xboxs on power strips when my kids arent listening and have a lamp in the living room I have set on a schedule to turn on before I get to the ground floor so I dont trip on anything on the floor the kids may have left in the middle of the night when they should have been sleeping. I also own one of their light bulbs, but havent found a great use for it yet. I have used it here and there and think it’s a great idea. I have a neighbor that cant figure out how to turn off her outside lights and this would be great for her, but I still think the idea of this light is pretty cool.

I bought two smart plug minis and love them. It’s so nice basically having a remote control for lights and such. Setting them up was a little tricky since the directions are not completely straight forward, (wording is a bit confusing) but once you realize what they mean, it’s very simple. Setting a timer is nice as well. No more forgetting to turn the light off when you leave for work. The app is done well with only two shortcomings. 1)The icon color is disgusting! I know, I know, who cares right? ME! Sea foam green or whatever it is could be the ugliest color ever. Lol 2) The bigger problem is the widget!! It seems as though they just made it so they can say it has a widget. It’s large, ugly, clunky, and very unintuitive. In the app, the buttons are colored when on and grayed out when off. The widget is the same color regardless so you never know the status of the switch. There is only room for two switches in the widget unless you want it to take up half of your screen. There’s no reason they can’t port what’s in the app into the widget and minimize it to fit at least 4 switches in the same area. Everything else with the app and plugs works great but the widget is apparently the forgotten child of the tech area. Put some effort into that, and you get the last star.

The app is fast and bug-free. Easy to use. Aesthetically pleasing. BUT, a few, necessary things are missing. 1. The ability to choose a specific light/dimming percentage (with the smart bulb). It’s crazy, but you have to choose a position on a slider and then hit save to see if you got the percentage you were looking to select. 2. The ability to offset the sunrise function (circadian). I want to utilize my smart bulb to imitate a sunrise earlier than the sun actually rises, in order to wake up more peacefully. Right now if I select the circadian function, it will begin getting brighter at 6:45am, but my alarm is set for 6am. What’s the point of imitating a sunrise if I can simply open my blinds? Maybe if my bedroom was in the basement it would be nice... 3. Include a gradual dimming transition option. I don’t want my bulb quickly changing from 20% to 80% in the blink of an eye; rather a slow transition from the previous set time. The workaround would be to create multiple set points on a schedule on my own to have it increase a few percentages every couple of minutes, but that takes me back to issue #1. You can’t simply choose 75%. You have to find it on an unmarked sliding bar. Fix these things and my review will be a boasting 5 stars and I will definitely buy more. Until then...3 stars

I always look at the 1 star reviews of other similar products to get a feel for the worst flaws occurring among the competitors. The Kasa reviews didn’t exhibit the flaws that would affect me so that, along with a friends recommendation, product features and price convinced me to buy this smart plug. I am not tech savvy so when I say it was super simple to install and set up you can take that to the bank. I only use it with the app on my iPhone so I can’t attest to use with Siri or other voice activated devices, which got a lot of complaints from other products. And I’ve only had it a couple of days and longevity of these products seem to be an issue too. Mostly I was very pleased with the simplicity of set up and ease of use of the app. Also the fact that you can plug two of them into one receptacle is great. The lights are not too bright. It does not get hot and it does not make noise when it clicks on and off. These were the most common complaints of the competitors similar choices.

I bought two minis to play with at Christmas and that was that for several months. When I needed to automate the shop lighting I took the minis down first and hooked them up to a display case and window lights. The changing from the home LAN to the new LAN took no longer than the original setup. The plugs are a bit big but they handle at least 7 amps and stay cool. After 3 days I went out and bought 3 more minis to finish the shop lighting. The KASA app is simple and does everything I want display and room lighting to do. It even works from across town in less than 2 seconds. I particularly like the scheduler which I use to make Sure all the lights get turned off at the end of the day. Also, there’s something cool about standing in the middle of the floor, app in hand, watching the lights come on around you. I will see how these go for a few months but I am considering two cameras for the shop and wall switches to start the home. Nice simple product that works.