Meross Smart Power Strip, Smart Extension Lead with 20W USB Ports, Compatible with Apple HomeKit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and SmartThings, Timer and Voice/Remote Control, 2.4GHz WiFi

These mini smart plugs are pretty handy! They're small and easily fit into tight spaces without blocking other outlets. Setting them up with HomeKit, Alexa, or Google Home is a breeze, and they work smoothly with voice commands. The remote control feature is great for managing devices when you're away from home.On the downside, they do need a stable WiFi connection, or they might lose connectivity. But overall, they're reliable and useful for automating your home. Great for anyone wanting simple smart home control at a reasonable price.

We control these plugs using Alexa through a series of Echo Dots that are, um, dotted around the house.They connected with wifi just fine and with a lot less faffing about than other things such as smart bulbs. We made sure to connect them to the 2.4Ghz band that most smart devices currently prefer - it makes little difference in most cases because the data being sent back and forth is trivial, simple commands and responses. It doesn't need a superfast band in order to work just fine. We use the 2.4Ghz guest network option on our main router, leaving the faster 5G band on the guest network for, well, guest devices. Using the guest networks limits the clutter on the main wifi channels of our router used for everything else online.We made our lives more complicated by having MAC address filtering on all network devices by default, which might keep intruders away, but also makes every smart gadget need to be registered with the MAC filter. The plugs (and bulbs) then revealed that our house was in fact a bit too large for the wifi to reach the extremities, and we needed to buy a wifi extender to improve coverage. These scramble the MAC addresses meaning that we had to register every smart gadget twice! Some connect to the extender by default, others to the main router, and a few will connect to either of them, so a lot of security entries needed setting up twice. But that's not a problem of these plugs. It might be needed should a far-flung smartplug simply not cooperate with the app or with Alexa. It's just something to bear in mind if you run a secure network with wifi extenders.Everyting now works like a charm. Devices reliably come on when asked, and with something like Alexa to help, they can run on timers for as long as you require. We have a gym that we can pre-heat with a fan heater in winter (it is unheated) or keep warm using an oil filled radiator on another Meross plug. We can now be anywhere in the house and ask Alexa to preheat the gym for 10 minutes (fan heaters being a nightmare on running costs), and these Meross smartplugs do the job very well. The Amazon plugs are more expensive, larger, and don't have energy monitoring capabilities so far as I can tell from the two we also have. The Meross plugs also have a side switch that enables you to simply lean over and switch the plug off without disconnecting it from wifi.These are great for sockets hidden away inconveniently behind furniture, you can flip that inaccessible power switch with a voice command instead. It means the Meross plugs are always on, but the energy overhead from using one is miniscule (it measures its own usage as well, as part of the overall scheme of things).I'd wondered when we were setting up this very basic automation in the house, that we were going to become too dependent on gadgets to do things we used to do manually, but if using them becomes effortless, it's easier to accept! We're now quite used to switching things on remotely, basically because these plugs seem reliable and also "accountable" in that we can see what power is being drawn through the devices by whatever's connected to them. We have a tortoise that needs its basking lamp on for a given amount of time in order to stay healthy, and we can now be in the kitchen and "switch him on" at the other side of the house for a given number of hours.We have about 10 of these in the house, a lot of stuff is still done the old fashioned way, but these are all reliable, none have shown a single problem, and while we could live without them, I'm actually becoming fond of what they make easier for us to do.While this might seem more of an ad for Alexa, I'm hoping that it indicates that these smart plugs are actually very good. For less outlay than for the majority of smart plugs, you get a decent array of features in a device that just quietly gets on with life. The cash we've saved by being able to limit on-times of things around the house more than covers the trickle of power used to keep the smart plugs listening to the network.I would personally hate becoming dependent upon automation in my own home, and the limits of automation sometimes mean we end up having to adapt how we operate in orrder to fit in around things the automation can't or won't do, but if we add a little light automation to things that are inconvenient in our everyday life at home, we would want it to be dependable. These plugs are just that.

Reasonably easy to set up . Very useful and effective. Integrates well with Alexa.

Helps to make home smarter. High quality, performs well. Very happy overall. Only wish that there was a power draw metric.Easy to setup. App is good too, has widgets for Android. Supports Alexa and other home assistants.Doesn't work without internet connection, so even if you have local network setup, you will still need external connection to their servers.

Purchased a set of two Meross Smart Plugs a month or two ago. We have been so impressed with the quality and ease of use that we ordered another set (of four!)They really are easy to setup! You can use them for so many things other than simple on/off switches or timers etc...So many ideas on the internet and the Meross app is full of ideas and very easy to use. Typically, it takes just a few seconds to setup a new "routine" and I am no technophile.Once or twice recently swmbo (She Who Must Be Obeyed) forgot to turn off her iron! I thought about it and put one of the new plugs to work as a safety measure. Now the iron turns on & off via a voice command BUT! if swmbo forgets to turn off the iron, it automatically shuts down after a given time, in our case 45 minutes. So, no wasting of expensive electricity with the iron being on all day or over night and we are kept safe too!That's just one example of the so many things you can achieve with these smart plugs. There are hundreds more!Delivery was quick from Amazon and literally three minutes after unpacking them I was already using them. With or without the Meross app. setting up is very easy. All you do is pair it to your internet hub using your internet password and away you go! The app is VERY good and gives you another (Manual) level of control besides the voice control.We have been using them now since December 2023. They don't require additional hardware and in all that time not once have they stumbled. No rebooting etc they just work & work & work. Technology at its best!

It’s a great product, stable connection, easy to use, very compact as it fits behind my washing machine. It’s very versatile especially while integrated with Home Assistant using Merros LAN integration using HACS. I was able to create an automation that throws a notification when washing cycle starts and finishes, it can also send notification how much a washing cycle costed! Bear in mind that’s not out of the box functionality and you have to be able to use Home Assistant and script in yaml. But if you know what I’m talking about then this is one of the best plugs with an electricity calculation. It even exposes Voltage of the grid to Home Assistant. Basic app is helpful as well, reacts fast, it’s stable, and is able to show you units in £ if you provide your energy price per KWH in settings.

Brilliant, lighting schedule set, tv off and on all by voice.Very easy to setup.