These basic gadgets controlled my home for me whilst I was away
Struggling to know how much you’re spending at home? That’s exactly how we felt as renters stuck on a fixed energy tariff. Until we heard about smart plugs, nifty wall attachments that track just how much each piece of home tech costs.
That’s not all, the electrical accessories are also the key to smarting up a home, whether that’s turning the lights on as you walk into a room, setting a timer to pop the kettle on, or even controlling your home tech when you’re out of the house.
So what more could you want? Well, to add another plus to the list the specific pair we tried are currently reduced in Amazon’s Prime Day sale. , it’s just a couple of pennies off being completely half price.
These pieces of plug-in tech may look underwhelmingly simple, which was my first impression when I opened the box, but they boast a range of home improvement qualities that’ll take your home to a smart hub.
No more crouching down to turn on my dressing table light, I can switch my telly off standby when not at home, and I can sleep peacefully at night knowing that our fan isn’t racking up a hefty bill in this heat - with Tapo’s tracking.
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The best feature is not plugged into the socket, but nestled in the Tapo app. The device you download the app on becomes the hub of the home, even when you’re not in.
Want to look like someone’s at home, or worried you may have left your hair straighteners on? Then the Away Mode fitted to the plugs will be a plus for you, and it can all be done in a tap of a button.
The set-up
The smart plugs are useless for users who don't download the Tapo AppThanks to the Tapo app, setting up the two smart plugs at home was incredibly simple, it literally is as straightforward as downloading to your tablet or phone and turning the plugs on at the wall.
Greenlight - the next step is to make sure the plug is flashing green and amber, this will allow your app to pick up the plug. Once on the app, you’ll be able to tap ‘add your devices’ where you can scroll down to plugs and choose the relevant one. The set I picked up was the Tapo P110.
Once clicked onto the plug the app will take you through a set of steps. To cut a long story short, the app then takes you to your device settings where you can select the plug from your phone’s wifi - it’ll appear as ‘TP-link’ followed by a code.
Don’t be like me and try to set up both plugs at the same time, because when it comes to the above step it'll make your life harder, it took me a while to differentiate which plug fell under the specific code.
This is important as you want to be clear about which plug is tracking a specific device - it would be easy to get this step wrong and turn on a light through the app instead of the washing machine, for instance.
Switching the plug on at the wall even when I'm not at home
Tapo plugs come with a range of features but it's 'hands-free' control is by far the most useful, well I found it to be. Once fully set up on the app controlling the devices plugged into each plug is relatively simple.
I chose to monitor our living room TV and the dehumidifier/fan in the bedroom, simply because I knew we'd use them the most over the next few days. Tapo's Away Mode and Remote Control made the plugs worthwhile for me, and without these two functions, I'm not sure I'd have gone through with the checkout.
The Tapo P100 plugs are designed to stay on at all times, so you can control the devices around the house. Away Mode, a feature that intelligently simulates someone being home by turning the plugged-in device (like a lamp) on and off, makes it appear that someone is home, even when you're not.
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'Alexa, turn on my smart plug'
Following on from my favourite 'hands-off' feature the Tapo App can also be integrated with any Amazon Alexa device you have at home, so if tapping into an app to turn the TV on from the other end of the house wasn't enough you can just ask Alexa to do it.
As I did above, what you don't see in the video is as Alexa replied the TV came on. I also did it from downstairs, speaking into the Echo Show 8 to turn on the dehumidifier upstairs. The smart plugs work with any Alexa integrated Amazon device which are all currently on sale thanks to Prime Day discounts.
I tested it out on the 2019 Echo Show 8, thanks to the large device screen I was able to see the energy information pop up at the same time. This means you can also see the green 'on' button on the Echo Show, a feature you'd miss out on if you were to sync through an Amazon Echo Dot speaker.
Disappointing energy 'tracking'
Having used the smart plugs throughout the week energy monitoring is their only downfall, everything else is worth paying for.
This is where the biggest disappointment of the TP-link smart plugs comes in, the energy monitoring. The app shows you the runtime and how much kWh of energy your plugged-in appliance uses but in my opinion, our smart meter is a lot more accurate.
You can see the energy figures for each plug by clicking the 'show more' option on the Tapo app, which is where I found out our dehumidifier costs us 3p to run for the whole night, not bad in my opinion. To get the figures enter your average price per kWh under the 'bill of this month' tab, it'll then work out the numbers depending on how much kWh of energy the device uses.
One plus to this underwhelming feature is the smart plugs 'current power' setting, once on the app will tell you the different watts of power for each setting of a device. Our bedroom dehumidifier went from 1w to 45w between standby mode and the highest setting.
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