hello I'm Wanderer001 and this is my review of the Amazon smart plug so
yes Amazon has now created their own smart plug to compete with the likes of
tp-link and Belkin Wemo switches I will admit that this particular form factor
for the Amazon smart plug I do appreciate it resembles very much the
tp-link mini smart plug which right now is my favorite smart plug but this is
about the Amazon smart plug so let's talk and take a little look around what
you're getting with the Amazon smart plug is a device that is 3.2 inches long
and has a whip a width and depth of 1.5 inches there is Amazon branding on the
top of the device and it's matte finish all the way around except for the back
which is shiny plastic and has a QR code for set up if you happen to lose the
card that comes with this for set up on the right hand side of device we're
gonna call this the right hand side of the device there is nothing and on the
left there is a button to actuate the smart plug on and off if one you don't
have this attached to an echo device and two you're not using the application it
does also have a small multicolored LED light right here which is not terribly
bright when it is connecting it is red when it is on it is blue but since I'm
mentioning connections and setting up let's see just how easy it is to set up
this Amazon smart plug
all right set up of Amazon smart plug on the Wall of
shame
all right once the plug starts blinking you open up your Amazon echo app and you
come over to the home automation portion and then come up to the plus sign
because we want to add a device we are going to select and a plug you can
choose from popular selections up there or you can say echo light plug switch
hub in this case it is a plug you also have a listing of what type of plug in
this case it is an Amazon plug but we could do a tp-link Kasa or Wemo or smart
things so we're just going to click on Amazon and it says that we have to make
sure that our Bluetooth and camera are accessible so we're gonna hit next I'm
gonna go to settings very quickly and turn on my bluetooth alright now that my
bluetooth is on I'm going to click there is a QR code that's being displayed on
the screen there's also a card that comes with it
right here that has the same QR codes we're just gonna do this off-camera very
quickly we're gonna select scan the barcode and it opens up my camera app
and I just lined up the camera with the barcode and it is connecting so right
now it's looking for the plug you can see it's blinking over there faster
so hopefully that means that we will be connected shortly you can see it's still
looking it is connected to Hal 9000 which is the Wi-Fi network that I use
for my home automation stuff so make sure that if you wish to have this on a
different Wi-Fi network than your main network that your smart phone is already
connected to that Network and there we got a little notification might be a
little hard to see but it says to control that we need to go to the echo
app because we are all done so if we come here and we're going to look
through our plugs we should see a new plug called first plug so we have a echo
device in the corner we're going to and activate that so you might want to
mute your system mouse cuz I'm going to say Alexa turn on first plug so there we
go Alexa turn off first plug all right
there we go and also if we come in here I can turn
it on and off using the app so that's quick and easy setup not bad so as you
saw not terrible at all to set up the smart plug what I will also say is
unlike Casa and Wemo when you first set it up to work with in Amazon Alexa and
Amazon echo device you do have to tell the echo to search for devices this one
automatically gets added into the echo ecosystem and you just say the name of
the plug other what its default is or if you happen to rename it so this Amazon
smart plug requires no hub that's the beauty of things like this you don't
need to have a smart home system or hub in order for this to work this packs as
its own self-contained device now there's one big issue with the Amazon
smart plug because it is an Amazon device it does not work with Google home
or Amazon home kit it only will work within the Amazon ecosystem now that's
not terrible if you have all Amazon devices or you're already in there I I
try and get devices that kind of talk to everything because I'm not trying to pin
myself into one ecosystem just yet but if you have Amazon devices this
probably is going to be a decent start for you getting into the home automation
ecosystem alright so a few things to consider about the Amazon smart plug the
placement of the button here on the side while i do prefer this depending on
where you have it placed it can be a little difficult to get to you can stack
two of these in a single wall outlet so again this is my preferred hardware
style for smart plugs the amazon smart plug only works with 2.4 gigahertz
spectrum so not the 5 gigahertz spectrum but
you don't need faster speeds with something like this you mainly need this
to be able to get to the far corners of your house and you get that with the 2.4
gigahertz spectrum as opposed to the 5 gigahertz spectrum now I did mention
that this LED right here does stay on when the device is plugged in and turned
on it's a little blue light it's not terribly bright when the plug itself and
device are turned off this light turns off so it doesn't have a always-on
indicator light which I do appreciate now two of the things that I look for
when I look at a smart plug are one reconnection speeds after it loses power
and two what is the return state of the plug when power is restored why well
these are things that you may not have considered but one if you have something
plugged into a smart outlet and you have it in the on position and you lose power
and when the power is restored at 3 o'clock in the morning if you had a
light plugged into that worried TV plugged into that and the plug returns
to a on state and the device is returning to an on state those are
turning on at 3 o'clock in the morning the Amazon smart plug here does not do
that if an item is plugged in and it is in the on state meaning if you have a
light turned on and power is lost meaning you either unplug this or power
is cut to the device when it reconnects the device will be off which I
appreciate it's it's a nice thing not to have a light or TV turning back on at 3
o'clock in the morning now speaking of losing power and reconnecting to this
smart plug here it takes about 15 to 20 seconds for the smart plug to
re-establish the connection to the network now it will show that the LED
here will flash red as it's reconnecting to the network and then the LED will
turn itself off however that does not mean that the plug has fully connected
to the network again when I brought up my application and tried to turn on my
light it was telling me that it still was not connected so you've got to add
like an extra five seconds to the 15 to 20 second reconnection time before you
can actually actuate with your application or the Amazon echo smart
device now I am talking about the application and
in order not to bog down this review I did do a full review of the Amazon app
which can be found over there in the corner I'll try and get you right to the
home automation portion which would cover how to use this plug using an
application as opposed to the voice commands one of the last things that
concerns me when I'm looking at smart plugs and things and I'm plugging into
my home how much power does this use and I'm not talking about just power of the
thing that you're plugging into it I'm talking about when this is just sitting
on my network idle how much power is it drawing from my network well in the case
of the Amazon smart plug when idling meaning the plug is just in on the
network and nothing is turned on and nothing is plugged into it it uses 0.8
watts of power and when this is turned on meaning the blue light is on and it's
turned on and on the network it uses between 1.3 and 1.4 watts of power
depending on how far away this was from my Wi-Fi now that's not terrible but in
comparison to the tp-link mini-review over there it uses just a little bit
more power and when I'm looking at devices I do have to consider how much
power usage they're getting because once you start having a bunch of these around
that power adds up alright so last but not least pricing this is an Amazon
device so it's gonna have Amazon pricing it's $25 which unless tp-link or Wemo or
having sales they're not going to be able to undercut that price and that's
the starting price I'm not even talking about sale prices for these so the
question is is the Amazon smart plug worth your time well that depends if you
are in the Amazon ecosystem already or you plan to just be in the Amazon
ecosystem then yes this is a very good smart plug for you but if you are
looking for compatibility with Google home Amazon or home kit this isn't going
to work for you because this is only gonna work for Amazon and this is this
is my problem with home automation and what I'm fearful of is I want things to
talk to everything once we start compartmentalizing and this only works
with this then you kind of have fragmentation but if you're already in this ecosystem
you don't have to worry about it but if you're not in this ecosystem or
considering using a different eco system in the future this might be a problem
for you and in that case I would suggest the tp-link mini again over there in the
corner because it's compatible with more things now that doesn't mean that this
is a bad device it's it's a great solid device and it's the first smart switch
that Amazon's put out what you're gonna lock yourself into that Amazon eco
system so if you can live with that great smart plug if you can't you might
want to skip on this one so I have been Wanderer001 if you have any
questions or comments please leave them in the area below and as always thanks
for watching