Amazon Smart Plug, for home automation, Works with Alexa - A Certified for Humans Device

Efficient and effective!

This item works wonderfully! I plugged some lights into these so I no longer had to stumble my way in the dark to my bedroom after shutting off the living room lights. I now leave the lights on and shut them off with the remote control for this item that I keep in my bedroom. No more stumbimg around in the dark for me!!!

Works well, was easy to set up with my Alexa too. Had it for a few months and no complaints!

These are about the fourth brand that Ive used, and the best. I had Wemos, which were very fussy and hard to install (the QR code you have to scan is on the side of the plug that faces the wall!! What engineer thought that that was a good idea??). Wemos also required their own app, and there was always a conflict between the Wemo app and Apple Home. On the other hand, these Amazon brand work seamlessly, you just plug them in and almost before you can open the Alexa app to name them they are live and ready to go. The only downside is that they are about 3x as expensive as other, no-name brands. If you need a lot you might wait until they go on sale.

I have bigger exercise equipment (treadmill, stepper ...) I put on these so that my great nieces and nephews cannot turn them on (get power to them) without asking my echo or alexa devices. Safety first! I also use them for lights.

This plug can be a pain to setup. I have purchased two of these plugs and here is my experience with each of them. First Plug This plug is used to control a lamp that has an on/off switch that semi-broke when a labrador retriever tipped the lamp over. The switch still works, but you have to turn it just right or the knob comes off completely. So we left it in the on position permanently and we used to manually plug/unplug the lamp when we needed extra light. Amazon often runs promotions for these plugs so I think we picked this up on Prime Day or Black Friday. This plug for some reason I couldnt scan the QR code and had to manually setup. Once setup, it worked fine with Alexa controlling it as a light. We renamed it to light from first light so we could just say Alexa, turn on the light or Alexa, turn off the light. It was setup so long ago I have no idea how it got grouped into lights. Our lamp doesnt have a smart bulb. Second Plug This plug is also used to control an on/off switch. This plug was a major pain to setup. I tried both the QR code and manual setup. Sometimes it would connect to my wifi and sometimes it would not. If it setup, I couldnt turn it off or on using Alexa app for android for a quick test (my Alexa speaker isnt nearby). If the setup timed out, I would get various errors on not being able to see the plug or not being able to connect to wifi. Finally, I figured out the plug was flaky because of the distance from my wifi router. I happened to have a Netgear EX2700 (2.4Ghz only) laying around because my wife used to need it for an old Lenovo Yoga when she was in college. I setup the wifi extender again (after a factory reset as it was setup for an old password) about half way between my router and the Amazon plug. This time the QR code scanning worked. I used the same password for my network name plus _EXT on the end. I think the Amazon smart plug must have tried this network with the strongest signal and the saved password because I didnt have to pick the network and retype my password after I previously chose to save it. Finally, I could control the lamp from my phone which this time was grouped among my smart plugs. I renamed Second Plug to Piano Light and it was good to go. One thing the Alexa app cant tell you is the signal strength and reliability of your WiFi network. It might show it briefly when choosing the network (signal strength), but it would be nice to see it constantly displayed within the app when showing the network your plug is on. This way if youre going into your device list settings to see whats wrong with the device it might show a flaky signal which would explain why you cant control the plug with your voice or the Alexa app. It doesnt have to constantly show this signal, only when you open device settings. I can understand the limitation of the wifi radio they can put into these plugs and thus the need for extenders if you get far enough from your router. I am using a NETGEAR R6700 Nighthawk AC1750 Dual Band Smart WiFi Router, Gigabit Ethernet (R6700) also bought from Amazon.

I have no complaints. Its reliable and works well.

Initial installation was easy. Paired with Alexa quickly and was easy to turn on and off a light using Alexa voice commands or Alexa phone app. Adding a routine to turn on and off a light at a preset time was much more difficult. Plug came with no instructions. You must access online instruction on Amazons website. They were incomplete and confusing. I finally found a You Tube site that was step by illustrated step that helped me get the routine up and running. It now works perfectly but it was a long road.