Kasa Smart Plug Power Strip HS300, Surge Protector with 6 Individually Controlled Smart Outlets and 3 USB Ports, Works with Alexa & Google Home, No Hub Required , White

This worked great for a few months, then I changed my router. It still honestly worked fine as a powerstrip/surge protector until recently when I tried making it a smart strip again. My pc is plugged into it(mostly to monitor power usage) along with some other stuff like a normal lamp, fan etc. normally all off. Since I got a re650 tp-link wireless extender to strengthen my network connect around 6ft away from the strip, it has been randomly shutting itself down for an instant effectively shorting anything connected... (testing my network on my pc the signal is 300mbps, regardless wifi shouldn’t be triggering a reset if it wasn’t a problem when I hd no router for a full month) 3 times just today and I refuse to continue using it for fear of damage to my electronics. It’s not even about this being a good smart strip this is literally not even a good power strip anymore. I opted to go for tp-link because they have a lot great reviews and if this was still the product I got when I opened the box I’d agree but now I’m shopping for a simple surge protector to replace this hemorrhage of wasted money. I’m usually about reading every level of reviews and am very careful with my purchases so I hope this review helps people. Not all bad reviews are reflective of performance but I’d definitely take risks with something else, this didn’t even make a year. After my recent problems with my extender and router I’d suggest avoiding the tp-brand altogether as their 5 star reviews seem inflated compared to my own experiences. My fault for banking on 3 devices all from the same company. Either a lot of the better reviews are bots or there’s a huge silicon lottery with these things.

I use it to control multiple life-support equipment on my saltwater reef aquarium... one of the best investments I made. If you can’t afford an expensive aquarium computer/controller system then this is the next best thing. Every outlet has its own schedule that you can set to turn on and off multiple times per day. For example, I have the filtration system automatically turn off for 5 minutes twice a day, while an automatic feeder provides food for my fish while I’m at work. I also like that it provides energy consumption information for each outlet. If I’m on vacation, I can check in real time throughout the day that the equipment is consuming energy, which lets me know that there hasn’t been a power outage in my house and that the equipment is running properly, so for me this feature is critical. As a side note, a good upgrade they could make would be phone alerts letting you know that the power strip has lost electricity. But this product still provides more than enough value to earn 5 stars. Everything can be controlled remotely, I can turn the outlets on and off manually from literally anywhere and I don’t have to have my phone connected to WiFi. Highly recommend this product.

Simple IOT device providing remote of plugged in devices. Quick response through app because of use of wifi. Con that it requires creating an account to use. Haven’t tried controlling from outside the app though. Like feature to monitor run time and power usage.

I got this mainly to monitor power drain. Sure, some plugged-into-the-wall devices work to that end, but either you have to scooch down to the outlet to see it, or put it on an extension cord and then its still far too unwieldy. With this, you can just open the Kasa app and see what the wattage is real time, plus see kWh of daily and long term use. Thats just nice. Also just having the switches there on the strip to turn items on and off individually is great. Especially good if you have a computer you like to put into hibernate. The lightest wind gust against the mouse and its right back on again. Not anymore! Heh heh. My only real complaint is that, like a lot of smart devices like (scales, lightbulbs, etc.), it only uses 2.4GHz, not 5GHz. Fine if youre in a house surrounded by nothing, but if youre in an apartment, hoo boy, better make sure youre not sharing WiFi channels with anyone. Theres tools for monitoring whos using what nearby, and as long as you use your own router, changing those settings are easy. Still, idk why they cant use 5GHz. Why do some devices do that? Why do so many still use Micro-B USB plugs/ports? Other than that, I have no complains. Highly recommend.

GOOD: Its got screw holes for mounting in the back! I find this to be a much more preferable and reliable alternative to using mounting tape. Its got gigantic plug faces! Yay! But they face sideways instead of normal, to better handle certain types of plugs. This might be good or bad for you (more on this a little further in) Energy monitoring! A hugely useful feature, since none of my other plugs have this. THE BAD: This probably (hopefully) doesnt apply to most people, but unfortunately for me, I actually one type of plug that was designed to be sideways in a regular plug face, the result now being that particular plug now only fits into the bottom outlet, and also blocks access to all but one of the USB ports. Ouch! Just the way my hardware dice has rolled, it seems. I do feel like the USB ports could be placed somewhere to avoid being potentially blocked, though. THE UGLY: Even when I set the Status LED to off, that doesnt completely turn off all the lights on the strip. So to keep it from lighting the entire room if youre trying to sleep or watch a movie, the only option is to create some physical block for the light. Ive put a couple layers of paper over mine, so I can still see the light, but at a much more dimmed brightness that doesnt annoy me.

All ports and plugs work! Perfect for me to control multiple devices! Highly recommended!

I have many of these power strips they work great. Although sometimes with power surges they end up off the wifi when the power returns. Overall I really enjoy having these power strips.

I installed a few HS300 strips in the bedroom, living room and office, and when combined with Sense energy monitoring system, I was suprised to discover how much energy some always on devices were unecessarily consuming (TVs, subwoofers, etc) By automating swithing off their plug, only when needed (easy with Alexa), in a few days, I reduced the Always On energy consumption by more than half. See photo. This means that these plugs will pay for themselves in less than a year. Looking forward for additional automations, like switching on/off various plugs (subwoofer, receiver, etc), when the energy consumtion of a selected plug (e.g. TV) is exceeding a certain level (e.g. only when the TV is ON, not OFF or on standby) => feature request submitted, under consideration by developers.

So I just got this and set it up and Im pretty pleased with it overall. The app is good but not great. I did have a little trouble with the initial connection, but that probably mostly my lack of attention. I didnt read/interpret the on screen directions correctly. :) Once I connected to the power strip wifi it connected with no issue. I bought this to limit the consumption of idle devices using vampire energy. My TV and sound system was using > 10 watts just idle and realistically I only use them 3 - 4 hours a day. My Laptops when powered off were consuming > 10 watts too. My concern was how much energy was this power strip going to use. I couldnt get accurate measurements from TP - Link and reviewers answering the question were simply guessing, so I took a chance and bought a couple of these. I did some testing and the following are my results: > When the power strip is switched on and all 6 plugs turned off my Kill A Watt meter showed that it was using between 0.9 and 1.0 Watts. > Each plug you turn on increases watts it was using, by roughly 0.45 watts. With all 6 plugs powered on (nothing plugged in) my Kill A Watt meter measured 3.6-3.7 watts. *I also tested this with LED status light on and off. It is a little hard to find but this can be turned on/off in the app. What I found was that there was no measurable difference on my Kill A Watt meter when the LED status light was on or off. I measure them individually as well as with all plugs turn on. Im sure there is some consumption but the Kill A Watt is limited to 0.1. So I left the status light on for now so I can visually see if the plug is on or off. The app: Overall Im happy with the app functionality, but it seems to me that it is missing a couple of things that I would find useful. Good: > The ability to create groups and turn on and off that group from the app with one action. > scenes (way to turn on/off a group of plugs) is extremely nice. Similar to a group it gives you the ability take an action on an individual plug or a group (i.g. turn on or turn off the defined plugs). > Scheduling. I have setup a couple of schedules but havent yet monitored things to see if they work as intended. Again the schedule allows you to take some action at a particular time of day. You can create it based on day of the week and time. Pretty basic but it covers my needs. Bad/needs improvement: > Power consumption: I found a bit annoying and think that TP-Link/Kasa could greatly improve upon here is the ability to view/measure the consumption of each device. To do so you have to go into each plug and open up the energy section. What would be nice is if you could see or add the consumption to the screen next to or below the defined plug. It would also be nice to see the total consumption for the entire power strip or group for example. Other things good and bad: Good: > built in surge protection > USB outlets Negative: > Not Homekit compatible, but for me I dont really care and the Kasa app is ok for me. > USB A outlets ONLY and may limited in charging ability for fast charge or higher power needs. However, at 12 watts output it does seem to charge my tablet with no complaints. So no real complaint here other than I need an adapter for all the new USB C plugs. > cant control the USB outlets. It would be nice to be able to control these too so if you left your tablet plugged in you could limit power consumption by turn it off after a set time. > For some the Summary: If you have a single device or multiple devices that you don’t need/want to control separately it would be cheaper and easier to get a single smart plug versus a strip. I bought the Kasa slim homekit single outlet and they only consume ~4.5 watts when the plug is off and 1.0 watts when the plug is on. However, if you have 2 or more devices you want to control them all separately then this is more efficient than individual smart plugs. At least from the standpoint of energy consumption. However, the power strip does have the advantage of a built in surge protection which isnt something the single outlets usually provide. Over all I think this strip provides decent value and should pay for itself in a couple years by saving power on several idle devices that are always sucking power. By scheduling and making it easy to turn on groups of devices (like my TV and sound system) I calculated that I should be able to reduce my power bill by at least $70/year. Maybe more if I find other vampire energy devices that are idle most of the time.

A person can get back what s/he pays for this smart power strip in savings from electric utilities in about 1 to 3 months. This is how I use the power strip to hunt down which of my home appliance and electronic device uses the most power. It turns out to be my large screen TV, which consumes 100W. I used to have my TV on most of the day even when I am just playing music from Spotify or YouTube. In San Diego, electricity costs $0.42 to $0.52 per kWh. Over 30 days at 24 hours per day, the TV was sucking in (30x24x100)/1000 = 72kWh or $29 to $36 a month. Over a period of 2 months, I simply made sure to turn off the TV when I was not watching it or when I was just listening to music. I was able to reduce $20 per month in electricity bill - $40+ over 2 months, which pays for the power strip. And the saving continues. And the saving continues...