Amazon Smart Plug

Amazon.com Price: $24.99 (as of 11/07/2020 23:54 PST- Details) & FREE Shipping. Details

Amazon continues to expand its ecosystem of Alexa-enabled smart voice assist devices. Another new product was a module called Smart Plug.
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Schedule lights, fans, and appliances to turn on and off automatically, or control them remotely when you’re away.

In essence, a Smart Plug is a power adapter that plugs into a regular electrical outlet. It contains a Wi-Fi wireless controller, so that the connected home appliance can be remotely controlled. If you need to turn on or off some device – just tell Alexa about it. A very interesting gadget, given how often we forget to turn off home appliances.

It is important to note that the Smart Plug adapter itself does not support voice control. For this, homeowners will need an Echo series speaker or, say, the Alexa mobile app.

By connecting consumer electronics to Smart Plug adapters, users will be able to configure the on / off devices on a schedule and control their operation remotely.

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Description

The new Smart Socket Smart Plug does not fit into the Echo line, not only by name. Before us is a component of a smart home that can be controlled through Alexa. Amazon’s scripts include a kitchen and coffee maker, but you can also connect any electrical devices or lamps that cannot work as part of a smart home. But there are a few limitations. The smart socket cannot be used in the bathroom, the current of connected devices cannot exceed 10 A, the connection is via a 2.4 GHz WLAN. Amazon promises easy installation and setup. It is enough to plug the socket into the network, and then add it to the Alexa application. Then you have to scan the QR code. In our case, we had to wait about another two minutes before the smart socket worked. In the application, you can change the name of the outlet or WLAN.

You can control the outlet in different ways. The least convenient way is the built-in toggle switch, which turns on / off the circuit and, accordingly, the device. It’s much more comfortable to use the Alexa app or the touch screen Echo Show speaker.

For example, you can send the corresponding Alexa voice command. Or set up the procedure in the Alexa app. However, a truly smart socket Smart Plug can not be called. In addition to simply turning on / off, she can not do anything. That is, it will not work to see power surges or current power consumption. Thus, it will not be possible to find out when the device has completed its work. In other scenarios, not everything is going smoothly either. We used a power outlet to automatically control the lighting of the courtyard depending on the time of day. But because of the limitations of Alexa, I had to create two procedures: the first to turn on, the second to turn off. Of course, this obstacle is not directly related to the Smart Plug, but comfort still reduces it. Especially in comparison with some other smart home systems.