Kasa Smart Plug Mini, Smart Home Wi-Fi Outlet Works with Alexa & Google Home, Wi-Fi Simple Setup, No Hub Required – A Certified for Humans Device (HS105)

I freakin love these things. They kinda drive my GF nuts because I have so many things hooked up to them, but I love not having to think about turning lights on when the sun goes down and being able to control all these parts from afar. Of the smart home type products Ive used so far, all the TP link ones have hands-down been my favorite. The app is intuitive and has a lot of great options.

They work great when they stay connected to the network. But I have 4 of these and they are constantly disconnecting from the nextwork and show as unreachable. I have to unplug them and some times that doesn’t work so I have to completely reset them and do the whole setup again. Will be looking for an alternative. Update: Total garbage. Still disconnecting every few days. Now it won’t even connect to my network at all. Would not recommend. I’ve used other smart plugs with no issue but I liked the design of these so gave them a try. These are not good. Will try the Amazon branded smart plug and see how I do with those.

These are my fav smart plugs. They have always worked and have never given me a single issue. Can use it for a fan or can use it for a lamp and go into the Alexa app and change the type setting from a plug to a light, which will allow you to control the plug as a light in your Alexa-enabled group-Alexa, turn on the lights. Highly recommend these plugs from TP-Link.

If you are buying this to work with Alexa, you should know That you are going to have to setup a second account with Kasa that then enables you to connect it to Alexa. It also uses an old school method of requiring you to use your cell phone to use WIFI to directly connect to the device during configuration to set it up to talk with your hone WiFi network. I’m an IT guy so while this stuff comes easily to me, the setup failed several times until I restarted the device. The setup process is painfully slow compared to the Alexa devices. You might want to buy the Amazon smart plug instead. This purchase was a promo one or I would likely have purchased the Alexa plug to avoid multiple online accounts.

The plug does what it does. The reason for the low rating it the app you are required to download and install. In order to get anything to work, even with alexa, you HAVE to create an online account with the Kava app and the EULA says they can basically sell all your data. There is no reason at all for the online account once you have it connected to alexa. After you set it up and connect it to Alexa you can delete the app or sandbox it on the phone so it cant do any more damage to your privacy. For some reason it requires location access to get to the WiFi. BE WARE: If you have a firewall app installed, be sure to turn it off while you configure the plug. it needs to switch wifi networks to get to the plug.

These plugs are easy to install initially but if you ever have to unplug them and reinstall, it becomes a bit more complicated. Alexa doesnt really like these. She refers to them as an outside application. LOL!!!