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The Best Smart Plugs of 2019

Gabe: Hey folks, this is Gabe at Security Baron. In today's world, you can turn almost any electrical appliance into a connected device using a Smart Plug. Today, we're checking out our three best Smart Plugs. [background music] Gabe: In today's Best Smart Plugs video, I'm going to go for my favorite overall Smart Plug. My favorite to use is Google Home, and my favorite to use is with Amazon Alexa. If you want to see a full written review on any of these Smart Plugs, go check it out at securitybaron.com. [background music] Gabe: I want to kick off today's best Smart Plugs video talking about my overall favorite Smart Plug, the AUKEY. The AUKEY connects to your WiFi, allowing you to remotely control your appliances. It can accept any appliance that goes up to 1,800 watts. One thing to note about the actual AUKEY itself is its thin design, allowing you to stack it in that wall outlet, giving you tons of space for whatever you would like to do. You look at the thin, simple design of the AUKEY, it's all-white aesthetic, it's no-frills cardboard box. Honestly, that belies the host of features underneath. The two biggest ones, of course, with any Smart Plug, are scenes and schedules. When you set up a schedule, it does exactly that. It allows you to know when your AUKEY is on and off. You can set it up for specific things that you needed to do. Scenes are a little bit more complicated. This allows you to have groups of appliances working in conjunction. If you have multiple AUKEY Smart Plugs, you can have them all set up to, example, turn on all your air conditioners in your apartment at the same time. On top of that, you can integrate it with IFTTT, allowing for some pretty sweet home automations, and add on Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, so you have voice control capabilities within your home. Beyond just looking at the physical elements and capacities of the AUKEY Smart Plug, we have to look at the mobile application, AUKEY Home, because this is where you're going to be doing all your setting up of those scenes and schedules, and voice integration. You want to make sure it's an intuitive experience so that when you're actually using your now-connected devices, it's smooth and consistent. Fortunately, AUKEY is knocking it out of the park here with a 4.5 in the Apple App Store, and a 4 in the Google Play Store. We don't have to worry about dealing with buggy mobile application concerns. Now, I know what you're thinking, you're saying, "Gabe, what's the catch? What's the price?" I'll tell you this. AUKEY Smart Plug gives you two for $27.99. Honestly, that might be the price you pay for just one of its competitors. There's a great value in the AUKEY Smart Plug. That's why I have it picked as my best overall Smart Plug. [background music] Gabe: Hold on. I hope you're enjoying today's look at the best Smart Plugs. If you want to be kept up-to-date on the newest in Smart Plugs, Smart Bulbs, and Smart Home Security, subscribe to the Security Baron channel. We're dropping new content weekly. Let's get back to the video. [music] Gabe: The next category I want to jump into is the best Smart Plug for Google Home. Here, I'm going to say something very controversial. I'm giving it to the Wemo Insight Switch. I understand that in 2018, Belkin had a host of issues when it comes to connectivity with Google Home. Since they fixed it, our experience with the Wemo Insight Switch has been very positive. In fact, when it comes to connectivity and using Google Home, it's one of the top performers, overall, when it comes to Smart Plugs. It'll also work with Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, and IFTTT. Basically, no matter which ecosystem you find yourself in, it'll work for you. It also comes with a host of other features that one typically expects from a Smart Plug. Like the ability to set up schedules and set up scenes, which it calls rules. On top of that, it gives you the ability to view your daily energy usage, daily or even weekly. You can know exactly how much power you're using to be a little bit more sustainable. It has a Home and Away mode which is pretty fun, because it serves to protect your home. It randomizes appliances going on and off to give the impression that you're actually at home, when you can be far, far away. Finally, you have a Sunrise and Sunset mode, so you can make sure that that coffee is ready as soon as the rooster crows. Overall, coming in at around $50, it's definitely on the pricier side. Given its advanced feature set and smart home integrations, you can see why we chose it as our best Smart Plug for Google Home. [music] Gabe: The final category we're going to jump into today is the best Smart Plug for Amazon Alexa. For us, it's the TP-Link Smart WiFi Plug Mini. Our experience setting up, connecting, and using this particular plug was really easy, really smooth. We can just name our Smart Plug something like AC, sit back on our couch, realize we're getting hot, and say, "Alexa, turn on the AC." Boom, we're blasted with that nice, cool breeze. Along with Amazon Alexa, you do have the ability to have it work with Google Assistant, Nest, IFTTT. No matter which smart ecosystem you're a part of, you can probably have all your bases covered with this plug. Along with that, you get your general feature set, the ability to set up schedules, the ability to set up the Scenes, even on Away mode to have things on so people feel like you're home, even when you're far away on vacation. It has a highly rated app, called Kasa, that is loved by both iPhone and Android users, for its smooth, consistent, intuitive, overall experience. That's not even the kicker. The kicker is that it costs $17.99 for the TP-Link Smart WiFi Plug Mini. It's not going to break the bank and give you that deep feature set. This is why we give it our top Smart Plug designation for Amazon Alexa. [music] Gabe: That concludes our look at the Best Smart Plugs. If you appreciated today's video, give us a Like and hit that Subscribe button. As always, this is Gabe at Security Baron. Be secure.

https://youtu.be/vsUWfiKwXmk

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TP-Link Smart Wifi Plug Mini Review

hey guys welcome to another gaging gadgets review video in this video we have a smart Wi-Fi plug from tp-link so this smart plug has the ability to be controlled through an app so you can set schedules you can turn it on and off it also has built-in integration with Amazon Alexa and Google assistant and on top of all that it's only $29 on Amazon so check the link in the description to get that price let's go ahead and open it up and check it out as you can see right here it has a two year warranty so that's pretty cool it comes with it for free comes in a nice cardboard box I like that because you can recycle it so looks like on the top we have a Quick Start Guide so we have the smart plug right here as you can see this does have a ground wire so that are allowed to be more compatible with different devices so really quickly we'll measure it two and a half inches wide by about an inch and a half thick on the right side you have a button and I believe this is a little light that'll let you know if it's getting power or if it's connected correctly and then on the back you have the plugs that go into the wall socket does seem to have a very nice construction there's nothing giving way and it also has a very good feeling to it the plastic seems of high quality you also get a really nice tp-link logo on the top which i think is pretty cool so now we've taken a closer look at the tp-link smart plug I'm gonna get it powered up and then connected to my phone we can see how it works and what the app looks like but if you can set up depending on your phone all you need to do is go to your respective app store and download and install the Casa for mobile app from tp-link research America one thing important to point out if you have a multiband Wi-Fi network ensure that you're connected to the 2.4 gigahertz Network before starting this installation well that's installing I'm just gonna plug this in see a nice little red light right here so once you've installed the app go in and open it up you can create an account if you want I recommend doing that because without the accounts you cannot use it with Alexa or Google assistant so I'll go ahead and create an account alright and once you complete the registration and create your account you'll be brought to this screen where it shows that there are no devices connected so to add a device we simply need to go up in the top right and this plus mark then we can scroll through the list and find the device that we're adding which is going to be smart plug make sure the smart plug is actually powered up and there's a light on it and then hit next after you plug the smart plug in you'll want to give it about ten seconds until it starts blinking red and blue that means it's ready for setup so once we do that we'll hit next we allow the location and then we'll start looking for the smart plug and once it finds it you can name it going to name mine gauging gadgets then you hit next we could choose the icon that we want to represent this actual smart plug I'm just gonna do a power strip and then it has found my network I'm gonna go ahead and give it the password so it logs in once you enter the information we'll go to this screen and begin setup looks like my device has an available firmware updates I do recommend doing this because you may get more features it may have better security and you may even have a better user experience right updates complete we're going to done so once you complete it gives you a quick little message saying that if you want to control this remotely which means when you're not connected to your own Wi-Fi network so say you're at work or something and you want to control the actual plug here you could do that by setting up the remote controls and the device settings so we'll go through that and we'll take a look so as you can see the plug shows up in my devices now and I can turn on and off as an example I have an old lamp Pierce we'll just see when it turns on and off you have a blue color at the top here and that means that this lamp is on we could turn it off using the button on the plug right here as well listen for the click noise that's the relay inside and that's also a good way if you can't see that if there's a lamp turning on and off you would know that the switch was responding to you and following your command based on that little clicking so as you can see in the app it changes the color of the switch when it's on and off so I'll hit this right now and we can see it work get a green switch but I also have the ability to click into the smart plug and we can see more information about it we can see how long it's been on today that's really cool great way to monitor how much power you're using we can set a schedule so that it'll turn on and off automatically based on the schedule that we set so if you want this light to turn on at about 8 p.m. and turn off at about midnight you could do that all within this app by creating an event so a way mode right here is actually really cool so say you're going out of town for a week you want a light to turn on at night so that it looks like people are home well normally you would just set a schedule to do that right you would have a turn on it like 6 p.m. and turn off at 10:00 to make it look like someone was watching TV well with this device in a way mode you could set a start time and an end time and then it will randomly turn on the light during that timeframe and then turn off again before the end of that timeframe you can even select which days of the week you want to repeat this so if you're constantly like maybe you work nights Tuesday and Wednesday you could have this repeat every Tuesday and Wednesday and then if anybody's monitoring house this light would turn on at random times every night to make it look like you're actually home so very cool and I love this feature you have a timer here so if you wanted the light maybe to stay on for another 30 minutes you could quickly just turn that on say oh I'm gonna go to sleep in 30 minutes I want this light to turn off then and then it would turn on or off depending on what your setting is here and then which you select on or off so in the device settings here pretty cool you can change the name quickly then you can also turn on and off that remote control one thing that it's important to do if you didn't allow the app to have access to your location you just want to update the time zone so that it works with the time that you put in there so real quick I just want to show you how easy it is to set up these switches up with Google assistant all we need to do is go to the Google home app once in the app select the three little lines on the top left then select home control once you're in the device list for home control select the plus right here to add the device and now we'll just scroll through until we get the tp-link tp-link casa login using the account you created at the beginning of the tutorial and as you can see it shows that it's linking the casa account so that'll bring in those information we'll have the devices to choose as you can see we can see gaging gadgets right here one thing to note the name you give of the smart plug inside the tp-link app is important because that's what you'll be using when you control it with a smart assistant so such as Google assistant or Amazon Alexa so I'm going to go ahead and hit done and then I'll give a quick command right now and we'll see if it turns it off go turn off gaging gadgets sure turning off the gaging gadget go turn on gaging gadgets sure turning the gaging gadgets on so as you can see that worked great it was very easy to setup and it works flawlessly and I love how it repeats the name so that you know that you're turning on the right device so that was the smart Wi-Fi plug from tp-link I have to say overall I love this device the design and look of it is great I think it would look awesome just about anywhere in every room I love that it's not too tall because then you can fit it in many more plugs and you have to worry about it taking up other plugs and blocking them the functionality in the app is awesome I love the scheduling and I also really like the away mode because it adds that random functionality and it's pretty cool because a device like this can actually some security to your home and on top of all that you have the really easy integration with Google assistant and Amazon Alexa so overall I'd highly recommend this device to anybody looking to add a little bit of smart to their home a couple of really quick things I want to note about this device it does not require any sort of hub or accessories to be used all you need is a Wi-Fi network and then your phone to control it via the app of course but that's all you need so you can buy this and you don't need anything else to get that smart technology second it can only support electronic devices they require 15 amps so anything above that and you could break this so just something to keep in mind depending on what you're gonna plug into it and then lastly you need to have Android 4.1 or above for Apple iOS 9 or above be able to communicate with the smart plug via your phone app if you have any questions about the tp-link smart Wi-Fi plug leave a comment below I'll get back to you as soon as I can I'm going to add an image on affiliate link to the description so you can find this exact device on Amazon if this video helped you give it a thumbs up and please consider subscribing to my channel gaging gadgets for more gadget reviews and tech tutorials thank you so much for watching

https://youtu.be/kLmbwSSaGYM

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Sonoff

okay google turn on the blender hi I'm Zach and this is bite size in this video I'm going to show you how to set up a five dollar Wi-Fi smart switch if you've been watching my channel for a while you'll know that I'm really into home automation I try to automate as many things as I can which so far includes my lights my thermostat my door locks and even some security elements like motion sensors and window sensors when it comes to automating things that plug into outlets I haven't found a good solution until now when I first thought about controlling appliances I looked for an off-the-shelf z-wave outlet these were a little too expensive for my budget the alternative that I came up with was to build my own I've been playing around with a $5 Wi-Fi chip called the esp8266 for several years this chip is a game changer in the embedded Wi-Fi world it is a micro controller with a full Wi-Fi stack built in it has allowed me to make IOT devices for a lot cheaper my plan was to use the esp8266 to control a relay which would connect and disconnect a load plugged into the wall if you don't know what a relay is I made a video on what it is and how to use one click on the card in the upper right hand corner I built a prototype of this design and got it to work however it wasn't very compact or industrialized it was around the same time that I started to hear whisperings of something called a sawn-off Wi-Fi smart switch this device takes an esp8266 and pairs it with a relay inside a nice injection molded plastic case an app to connect and control the device is available in the App Store and is compatible with my Google home the best part about the SONA is its price tag all of this is available for less than $5 since I can't even purchase the same components for that price trying to make my own became pointless plus I don't even have to write my own app the first thing you may wonder is how to use this device as a switch how does one plug in the device that they actually want to control the SONA off Wi-Fi smart switch needs to have a power extension cord connected to it this may scare some people off but I'm going to show you how easy it actually is I purchased this six-foot extension cable from Home Depot if you go during the holiday season like now they have these on sale and you can get them for about a dollar 67 take a pair of wire strippers and cut the cord about 18 inches from the female end strip about a quarter inch of insulation from the ends the male end of an extension cord is polarized that means it can only be plugged in if the orientation is correct the two wires are called neutral and line in the US the neutral prong is a little wider than the line prong if you look at the cord the neutral side often has little ridges running down the whole length once you've identified the neutral wire on the male side of the extension cord look for the word input on the sonar switch you need to insert the neutral wire in the terminal labeled N and the line wire in the terminal labeled L you may need to loosen the screws before trying to insert the two wires tighten both screws until the wires are snug [Music] now take the female end of the extension cord and locate the neutral wire again by looking for the ridges repeat the same process as before by inserting the neutral and line wires then tightening the screws at this point give the extension cord a gentle tug to make sure that the cord doesn't pull out after both sides of the extension cord have been secured replace the covers and tighten the screws each cover has a little set of teeth that will bite into the cord this provides some strain relief and that's all there really is in terms of assembly the sewn off switch is now ready to be used plug the extension cord into the wall and find something that you want to control and plug it in to the other end of the extension cord the sawn-off Wi-Fi smart switch is controlled using a free app that can be found in the App Store I installed it on my phone and registered for a new account this app has a nice and clean interface to turn off the device plugged into the switch you simply tap the power button I'm pretty impressed with the response time which if I had to guess is probably less than 250 milliseconds it might be interesting to measure that in the future video so what exactly is going on inside the SONA off switch let's open it up and take a look you'll notice that at the heart is an esp8266 the firmware running on there allows the app to send TCP requests to turn on and off their large relay if you look along the edge you can see that the line wire goes in and comes out of the relay the relay interrupts that connection which turns the lamp on or off I believe that the code is open source and that some people have actually modified their code to fit their needs that's also something I want to look into for a future video so now that I know what this thing looks like on the inside and I can control it using the app it's time to integrate it with my home automation environment I'm going to add it as a home control device in Google Assistant which will allow me to issue commands using my phone or Google home mini I can give each switch a nickname which Google assistant will use to identify it this allows me to do this hey Google turn on the fan lamp soldering iron oscilloscope and blender I have to say that this thing blows everything else out of the water for only five bucks my only complaint is that I wish it had some way to monitor and report the energy consumption of whatever device is plugged into it in a future video I may try to hack the song off switch to add this feature for anyone who has an Android smartphone and wants to get into home automation I would highly recommend picking up one or two of these when people ask me how to get into home automation I often recommend to start with one device and build up from there adding one thing at a time that about wraps up this video I do tons of projects like this click here to watch the video where I show you how relays work or you can click here to watch my entire home automation playlist here on byte-sized and make lots of project videos if that's something you're into be sure to click this subscribe button and YouTube will start recommending you more videos like this I appreciate you watching and I'll see you next time

https://youtu.be/lRCH67wfwNE

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