Kasa Smart HS100 WiFi Smart Plug, Classic 1-Pack, White

I bought three of these when they went on sale a while back. It took a while to figure out the correct way to get them set up. I wasnt aware you still had to go online and set up the app on the Kasa web site before you could us it through the internet or Alexa. You can do this with a smart phone or Ipad, it didnt work with a PC. Once I found that out, it went smooth from then on. I first used my Ipad to locate and set them up, no problems here, I could turn them on from anywhere in the house or outside, I havent tried them from another location yet, but it says they will work away from home. Whats keeping me from giving five stars is that its so hit or miss with Alexa. I have two Echos, one in my house and another in my moms house and they both have the same issues. The first issue with Alexa is range. I cant put these farther than 7 feet from the Echo. I can get about 10 feet away in my moms house. Weird thing is that I tell it to turn on a light and it says OK and nothing happens if its over 7 feet away. I tried it with all three units. Keep in mind that it works fine through the internet app and my Ipad. Sometimes, Alexa cant seem to locate one or more of these devices and I have to reset them and set them up again. Also, if you plan on using Alexa, sometimes, you have to say your words a certain way to make her happy. I can say turn on the living room light and Alexa sometimes responds I cannot locate a device called Living Room Light. Then I say turn the living room light on, and Alexa says OK and it happens if Im in range. If you just plan to use your smart phone or Ipad to control these, you should have no problem, they seem to work fine every time.

<Update 6.20.2016> I love these units & cannot wait (though Im going to have to anyway) for the HS200 TP Link Smart Switch (In-wall light switch) to come to the market per their latest software update note under the Whats New. Ive had my first TP Link Smart Plug (see the original post below) for about 6 weeks now, my second for about 4 weeks & they are working flawlessly. As mentioned in my OP, I wanted a unit for my entertainment center & have since received & installed it. Drove my college student (whos home for the summer) nuts as the power was not on in the mornings. For the 4 weeks since having the second unit (I called it the TV power), she could not figure out how to get power to the TV. She finally unplugged the power strip from the smart plug & plugged it directly into the wall below the HS100. So I finally showed the family how to work them (mainly just so they wouldnt keep unplugging & plugging in the power chords). On another note, I finally received my Amazon Echo (just in time for Fathers day, wahoo!) and so I now have the Smart Plugs hooked up to the World Wide Web, the Internet super highway, the Internet of Things, etc., etc. I understand the frustrations some people have posted regarding the connection to the Echo & I believe I have figured out why. Amazons Alexa App is in need of some serious TLC. TP Links Kasa App is doing what its suppose to do. In my original post, I had a small issue with connectivity of the software to the units which still exists but not near as rough since the latest software update. Still, when youre not connected to your LAN (because youve been away or simply have the WiFi / Data off) & want to adjust something in the schedules or simply turn the lamp on, connecting wirelessly sometimes has a hiccup. Each unit has to ping constantly (every 1.5 to 2 seconds as it was explained to me) to your LAN to let the router know the unit is there. When you connect your phone to the LAN, you may just connect in between those pings in which case the software on the phone may come back & say There are no connected devices. It does offer a pre-configured devices ribbon which you can select to initiate the units connectivity through the smart phone (see the uploaded pics). After selecting the ribbon, you have to select the little plus button on the right of each device until you have the no unsaved devices screen, then your units are active for you (5 stars now that I understand the software & realize that most of the frustrations are not the fault of TP Link). After I finally created an account with TP Link (all you need is an email address & a password, no personal information is required) I went back into the Kasa App & set the first unit to remote. In the Alexa App, I had to select the Skills in the menu & do a search for Kasa (there are over 123 PAGES of skills & no file management system in the Alexa App). After getting Kasa as a skill & initiating it, I then had to go to the Smart Home in the menu & select the Kasa skill to find the HS100 Smart Plug. This is where the frustrations started for me. The skill was not there. I know I had found it & selected the skill & initiated it but it was not listed. So I went back to the list & did another search for the Kasa (its on like page 71 & each time you go into the list, it starts on page 1). After the third time & about an hour plus, I discovered a search box where I could type the name Kasa & search & it would find about half a dozen skills to choose from, duh! What an idiot. Lucky we have the skills name otherwise its a page by page search until you find what your looking for. Anyway, I digress. The skill was not showing up in the Alexas Smart Home directory. I was about to put the phone down & walk away before something got seriously injured when I realized I had a couple updates to finish on my phone. One of these updates was a 34 megabyte update. Ive read that if you have a decent size (dont ask me what decent size means, I figured 20 meg or better) update, you should reboot your system after updating. So after my update I rebooted my phone & figured ok, Im cooled down a bit, Ill try the Alexa App one more time. Opening the App, I went straight to the Smart Home directory & whadyaknow, the Kasa skill was there. Finally, a step forward. Opening the skill, I can now (finally) have the Kasa skill find the HS100 Smart Plug. Picking the find devices gave me an immediate you have no internet connection message. Then I walked away! This is a long story but I promise it has a happy ending (well, sort of). A few hours of thinking about it I came back to try again. I figured perhaps because the HS100s connect via 2.4 GHz & the Echo connects to the more active 5 GHz, the two are not communicating. So I purposely connected my phone to the 2.4 GHz, opened the Kasa app & verified I could connect to each of my Smart Plugs. Then while leaving the Kasa app open, I went back into the Amazon Alexa app, into the Smart Home directory, & picked the find devices once again. The you have no internet connection message immediately popped up. So I figured the only way I could find the skill to begin with was to reboot the phone so I rebooted once again. I forgot to connect to the 2.4 GHz & open the Kasa app to verify my units were accessible, I just went straight to the Alexa app and after picking the find devices button it came back with a message, searching for devices. This can take up to 20 seconds. Wahoo! It worked, I found my HS100 named the Lamp. Now there are three ways of turning the Lamp on. I can say Alexa, turn on the lamp and Alexa says, ok and the lamp comes on. I can push the power button on the front of the unit and the lamp comes on. And I can wait for the scheduled time and the lamp comes on. These units are AWESOME!!! Of course I had set only the Lamp to remote in the Kasa app so I had to go back to the Kasa app & change the TV power to remote so I could find it in the Alexa app. I had to go through rebooting the phone a couple more times to get my second unit connected with the Echo but I am now connected & my college kid is happy to say Alexa, turn on the TV power so she can watch a movie instead of getting a summer job, ggrrr! ____Original Post____ This is a true product review & I paid full price for the TP Link Smart Plug (HS100, no Energy Monitoring) unit. So with that said, let me tell you my current thoughts on this product after playing with it a mere four days. I dont yet have an echo (its on order) but am preparing for its arrival. So in the mean time I figured Id try this on my local LAN before submitting my so called Smart house to the wiles of the internet. The unit itself is easy enough to work with. You can use it as a single outlet power switch & simply push the button to turn it on and off, much like a six outlet power strip with a switch, but this would be a single outlet. But I want a timer control switch that will automatically turn on at a certain time & off at a certain time & I want to (in the future) have that timer & simply override it with a phrase, Alexa, turn on the lamp. So I needed to connect it to the LAN for starters. After following the instructions for downloading the software (Kasa for Mobile) from Google play I began my assault. My phone automatically connects to my 5 GHz WiFi so I had to manually change it to the 2.4 GHz as this frequency is the only one this Smart plug will work with currently. Reasons are listed on the website (tp-link.us) Now there are two buttons on this unit; a small button on the very top with a light grey gear icon on it is for its configuration (visibility) when connecting to your phone via the local LAN and the other button in the front just above the outlet is a two tone LED light/power button. This is the button you push to simply turn the power strip on/off. This button flashes orange/green when you first plug it in which tells you its ready to begin the connection phase. The app found the plug pretty quickly & began asking me the questions needed to control this plug like what to call it (important to name it something unique to the situation). I called it the lamp. What, Its the only lamp in my family room & I dont intend on connecting any other lamps in the house to the Echo so ... Alexa, turn on the lamp will work very nicely. I can go back & change the name of the plug if I need to. The app then asked for the password to my LAN so my phone can connect to the plug. This is where I screwed everything up cause I couldnt remember what the password was. After resetting the plug a couple times (I now know the reset button works) I got the unit setup & the lamp was on. The software, while easy enough to understand is a bit too simplistic in its presentation which leads to a little frustration in finding what you are searching for. Lemme esplain. I wanted the plug as a timer so I needed to get a schedule setup. You need to tap on the lamp on the left side of the apps screen as the right side is the power switch for controlling the plug via phone. Then you have to pic the three little dots to open a menu so you can pic the schedule selection button. I suppose this is necessary cause if you have several plugs, you will need to determine which one you are working with and there are a few options in menu as well. So I set the schedule for an early morning on & mid morning off, Monday thru Friday. Then created a second schedule for Sunset on & late evening off, Monday thru Sunday. Now mind you this is connected to the local LAN which means if you want a current Sunset time, you have to have your phone connected to the unit to get it as the current Sunset changes daily & the unit needs a connection to the Internet to get that time. Duh! No wonder the lamp was coming on early, the Sunset time was current when I programmed it but is now later than when the lamp comes on as my phone is not connected to the LAN to feed the unit the current Sunset time. :-P A bit of a frustration is when you have a cloudy or stormy afternoon & it gets dark well before sunset. So I wanted to override the current setting & turn the lamp on. Well low & behold when I opened the app, it said there were no current devices configured, would you like to configure one now? Then a little popup display said You have had a previous unit configured which you can access after setting up a new device. After several minutes of getting out of the app, going back in, getting out, disconnecting the phone from the LAN, reconnecting, disconnecting, rebooting the phone, reconnecting, I was ready to unplug the unit & plug the lamp into the wall socket. I thought, All I want to do is turn on the lamp. How lazy am I that I cant reach up and turn the knob, I have to have a Smart Plug. BUT, I wanted the Smart Plug for the timer function. So I was going to Add Device for the fourth time. After picking the Smart Plug icon & giving it a name (the lamp, how original) the app found my previous device & the schedule I was able to turn on the lamp (losing 1 star for this). Havent had an issue with it since but its been a mere four days. On another note, I want to comment on others posts regarding this unit. There is a question/post about why it will not turn on a TV. Unless you have one of those old tube style TVs with a manual toggle switch that you can keep in the ON position, this will not turn on a TV. This Smart Plug is designed to simply deliver power to the TV. As I mentioned earlier, in its most basic form this unit is a one outlet power strip, that is all. The specifications of this unit are for a 100-120 Volt AC outlet with a 15amp load maximum. I have not overloaded this unit to see what would happen but my current wiring for my entertainment system (TV, DVD Player, Wii, etc) are all on one six outlet power strip on a 15amp breaker & they have not tripped the breaker yet. With that said, there is a lot of residual power being leaked by these devices while in a dormant state. I plan to order another TP-Link Smart Plug and schedule a time for these devices to receive power so they can be used. They will be off during the night & when Im away from the home, powered when I am home so I can use them. Another post or two or four mentions this unit is large & covers both wall outlets. While technically this is true, this is also technically not true. This unit has a lip on the back side where the prongs plug into the wall. A standard two prong plug can fit nicely under this unit & both seat perfectly (see the pics I loaded) while anything larger will not. You just have to plug the two prong plug into the bottom outlet first, then plug this unit into the top outlet. In the pics, I have my iClever 6 port charging station plugged into the bottom outlet (need constant power to a charging station) & the lamp via the Smart Plug in the top outlet.

These things are awesome! I tend to not review as much anymore because...well...it is a time suck and priorities have doing other things. But in this case I feel compelled as I noticed the most helpful critical reviews had scared off a few would be purchases in describing issues when using high wattage. In my home I generally have lamp lighting and these things allow me to will lights on with must my voice (Echo Required) or the Kasa app manually or via the schedule. I also have gone a little overboard with Echos and Dots that allow me to speak just about anywhere and turn up the heat or have lights on and off. I am in the tech business, so this is the kind of thing that happens... But I just want to let people know that I have had no issues at all with these things...well...occasionally Alexa needs to be told twice to turn something on or off...but that is very much the exception. And my experience is with over 17 of these units...I did take advantage of the holiday pricing to ramp up...lol. With regard to wireless connectivity...I use this with my drive lights where the outlet is some 50 ft or so from the access point with no issues I had to purchase oversized outlet covers for the drive lights and the xmas lights I installed...but it is totally cool to have them all come on at the same moment via different outlets.. Their form factor could use some improvement, as you have to have a fairly small plug to use on the other outlet...as larger ones will not fit...about the only bone I have to pick. And what is great about these vs. wireless switches is they are mobile and my investment goes with me if I have to move. Cheers.

This plug is great. The app is very fast to open and locate the device. Easy to setup and use remotely. I bought this for my mothers house because she uses lights on mechanical timers and is always calling me to complain that the lights are coming on too early, too late or turning off at the wrong time. I have a wifi bulb at home from a different manufacturer, which I set to turn on automatically every night at a specified time but the app is slow to locate it when I want to adjust the time. This TP-Link is very fast with the Kasa app. I was driving home after installing it and she called to tell me the light was still on, so I pulled up the app and I was able turn it off from 10 miles away and adjusted the turn off time from the road. I didnt need to change the IP account to static or anything. It just works. I will be buying a few more for my own use and a few light switches as well. You have to setup and an account to use it remotely, but thats just an email address, which you verify by clicking on the tab when you receive the confirmation, and a password. Ill be buying a few smart switches from TP-Link soon to change in her house too. Two more things to note. This has a USB port on the side I believe to charge things with. It was not used in the setup at all. Also, you can see remotely which devices are on or off. Great product TP-Link!!

I have a water well and one year the outdoor plumbing from it froze. We had no water pressure when that happened because the part that froze was a 2 inch section of pipe that had the pressure sensor on it. You cant buy heat tape for a 2 pipe! The well tech said to insulate that pipe and place a heat lamp near that pipe, turning it on when it gets close to freezing. That involves clamping a heat lamp near the pipe and running an extension cord from the well head to my house, turning it on when it gets cold. It rarely stays cold enough during the day here, but it could happen. But what would I do if I was not home? This WiFi smart plug will hopefully be the answer. Basically, this is a WiFi relay/switch. You download the app, plug in the device to a wall outlet and the app connects the plug to your home network after you supply your routers WEP code. You next specify when the device will turn on. Generally, accessing the device turns it on. The icon on your smartphone Kasa app will turn green. You can have it turn on and off at a certain time on a specified day of the week but not on a specific date on the calendar. By doing so, it acts like setting a smartphone alarm. It asks for your location for sunrise/sunset information and can turn on the device at sunset, etc. There is an option to turn on the device for a low temperature situation, which I assume means outdoor temperature, but there is no setting for what that temperature is when it will turn the device on or at what subsequent temperature will it then turn it off. What if there are conflicts between the set schedule and the temperature? I will have to ask the company about that. In the meantime, I can check the weather and turn it on an off remotely. How long does it take for the smart plug to turn on or off when using the app? It is almost instantaneous. How far away is the smart plug from my Comcast router? About 80 feet.

Initially I left a horrible review. Im not ashamed to retract and admit it was my User error. I mixed and matched with Wemo light switch and didnt realize I choose a less expensive TP Link outlet plug. I tried connecting it via Wemo app periodically for 2 days with no sucess. I decided to write a bad review and return it. I began looking for a different brand when I realized the price difference between Wemo and this tp link. It hit me I did pay the lesser of the two, I mixed the two product brands! Duh!!! Immediately I went on YouTube , viewed the directions and set this up in 5 minutes. I linked it to my network and my Alexa. The easiest thing Ive ever done. I purchased this for my young son who was scared to go to the bathroom at night because of the dark. He would wake my wife and I up at night to escort him to the restroom. That started getting old quick. Now he tells Alexa to turn on the lights; no longer afraid and goes on his own. This is an awesome product and made me feel like a great Dad. As a young child I too was afraid of the dark, sometimes still am, lol. My father use to scold me, be a man, there are no monsters. I didnt want to take any chances, so like many kids, I suffered some nights holding it in. As parents, I feel we must be more understanding and not unintentionally traumatize our children by becoming an unsympathetic monster. I am so great full we have this technology. I hope to make my entire house Smart. This is the way of the future, embrace it! I highly recommend this product.

I purchased the Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug (not the mini) to power a hot water recirculating pump in my basement. I received it in one day with Amazon Prime in a very sturdy box. The Kasa smart plug came with a quick start guide card with very clear, straightforward instructions. I downloaded the Kasa iPhone app (which has outstanding reviews) and I set up the smart plug in my office only a few feet away from my Verizon 2.4 GHz router. The app walks you thought the set-up process quickly and without a hitch. During set-up you will name the smart plug for future identification. I used a night light plugged into the smart plug to test it out. There is a button in the app that you touch to turn the smart plug on or off and it worked the first time. Then I moved the smart plug to the basement where I was going to use it. The new location was one level down and approximately 50 feet away from the router. After plugging in the smart plug into the basement outlet, the smart plug blinked several time and then turned green and worked the first time. Next, I launched my Google Home app on my iPhone. In the upper left hand corner of the home page there are three horizontal lines. Tapping those lines bring up a menu. Tap on the Devices in the menu and follow the directions to add a new device. Google Home identifies this smart plug as TP-Link Kasa so scroll down until you see this device. Once set-up I simply said Hey Google turn on <smart plug name given during set-up> Google Home turned on the smart plug and confirmed that it was turned on. There are other nice features on the TP-link app that allows you to set-up a schedule for on-off and a timer that will turn off the smart plug after the count down. So far, I am extremely happy with my new smart plug on my first day of use. Should anything change, I will update my review.

OK, here is the scoop from a non-technical person. This is a great little gizmo although I think it is a bit expensive. The price I pay for being an early adopter of technology I suppose. It arrived packed well from Amazon. The product packaging is mostly recyclable cardboard and easy to open. The instructions are a bit vague, but with a little trial and error I got it working in about 10 minutes. Here are a few helpful bits of information. Yes, you have to download the KASA app to your phone. No, the KASA app is not available in the Amazon app store (shame on you Amazon); you must go to one of those other 2 app stores. Yes you have to create an account with KASA using your e-mail address, but so far I havent gotten any SPAM from them. Yes, you need your Wi-Fi password. Yes, it has to be 2.4 not 5.0. If you have X-finity (Comcast) you probably have both. Getting the outlet to work with my phone was really easy. Getting it to work with Alexa (Amazon Echo) was a bit confusing. There are all kinds of posts saying you no longer needed to enable the KASA skill. That is all wrong, you do. Once I figured out that was the issue, everything was easy. Problem for me was that I pushed the button to try and connect to Alexa and that restarted the discovery in the KASA app. No way out so I had to delete and redo. Not a big deal: hit the button, give it a name, pick an icon, done. HINT: Use a simple name when setting up the outlet. I named mine the lights. Now when I walk onto the room I simply say Alexa, turn on the lights. And like magic, the lights come on. If I had named it the northwest corner outlet then it wouldnt be nearly as much fun. As I get more of these, I may have to be a bit more clever in the names, but since I have just one, it all works out. As an aside, names are not lifelong commitments. If I ever want to change the name I can just push the button and pick a new name. What I thought was really cool was that I never had to tell Alexa the name. I enabled the KASA skill. I opened the Alexa app. From the home screen I opened the menu (the three lines in front of the word HOME) and then tapped Smart Home. It gives 3 choices, I picked discover devices. It asked me for the e-mail and password I created in the KASA app. Alexa took care of the rest. The usage data in the app is interesting, I guess. Like I said, I have a lamp plugged into it. It is kind of interesting to know how long the light was on, but I am having a hard time convincing myself I care. I also have not used any -f the timers or other features in the app. My main goal was to have a fairly cheap, easy way to use Alexa to turn lights on/off. And, although I think it is still a bit expensive, at least I didnt have to invest in any other hardware to make it work..

I agree with all of the positive reviews on here, so I am writing for a more specific purpose. First, I am currently using 4 of these plugs to control Christmas lights as a group via Kasa and Alexa. It works every time. Alexa, turn on Christmas. More importantly, I am able to use this plug to power on/off an amp, which powers external speakers. Here is the setup: Echo Dot, wired bookshelf speakers, speaker wire, 3.5mm cable, small lepai amp and this plug. I already had all of these items except the plug. I will admit that there are cheaper alternatives to my setup for bluetooth speakers or the dots internal speaker that may work better for most people who just want a little background music in the kitchen rather than wired speakers. When the 3.5mm cable is connected to the Dot, the Dots internal speaker does not work. You can use external speakers, but they must be powered by another source. So, I was stuck turning on and off and amp by hand. This defeats the purpose of voice command until I bought this plug. Now I always leave the amps on/off switch to ON and connect the amps power supply to this plug. I keep the amps volume relatively low to avoid speaker popping when the amp receives power. I control the remaining volume with my voice with Alexa once I turn the amp on. Now, from anywhere on the first floor, I can say Alexa, turn on speaker and the plug will switch the amp on and the speakers are 10 times better than Alexas internal speaker. Alexa, volume 10! A few extra notes: *Even if the speakers are off, I can still use Alexa, but I will not hear her response because the speakers are off and the Dot is still connected to the 3.5mm cable. Hence, the Dots internal speaker is inactive. Its easy to turn the speakers on if I really need to hear Alexa, but my light commands still work very well without the need to always have the external speakers on. *I named the plug Speaker in the Kasa app *The plug normally covers both openings in the outlet. The outlet pictured has a little more space in between because there is a reset button in between the two openings. Fair warning if you are thinking about buying smart devices for the first time: Yes, they are awesome. They are awesome, most are very expensive and adding to your set up is addictive. I cant wait to see what other work-arounds people come up with....

Awesome! This plug is working swimmingly. I have only just got it since its already been compatible with Amazon Echo. I would have been less thrilled if I was dealing with the extra steps to make them talk. At first, it set up with ease. I assumed I had to install the app first and set up the plug before trying to sync with Echo, but it became a little bit of an issue. I set up the first plug with both, then started adding other plugs. The new plugs had a lot of problems being found by Echo and even the Kasa app would keep renaming them to the first name I chose instead of the changed named when the app would turn on. The old names would flash and then change to the new ones. I noticed that the one plug set up with Echo was also still showing the old name, while the Kasa app kept showing the new name. (Example: Lvn Rm Torch Light versus Torch Light). SO, I forgot all devices on Echo, uninstalled Kasa, reinstalled it, and bam. All plugs showed up, showed up with new names right away, and were all found on Echo first try. I may only have needed to sign out of my account on the app and resign in versus the full uninstall, but Im thorough. My suggestion is to plug all the plugs in where you want them before ever starting up the Kasa app the first time, so they all go in at once and you dont have to do the dance with later pairing. Im sure its only going to get better as time goes on with how newly integrated these are. I am very pleased!