Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Plug Mini Review

This is episode number 168 of The Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to The Homeowner Show. We're so glad that you could join us for another episode here live in our studios. How you doing, Kev?

Man, I am good. It is, you know, coming back from Thanksgiving week, and I'm rejuvenated, and it's cooler outside. Bump it up, bump bump.

I'm just leaving it. I don't care.

It's good.

I like it.

Hey, come on. Come on. Let's do it. All right. I got something for you. Ready for this?

I'm ready. All right.

Live on the show.

Okay.

I got something for you. Ready? Ready. All right, I'm pulling out something here for you.

Oh, is that what I think it is?

You hear that?

I do.

Let's find you a good one. You like the meaty ones, right?

I do.

Let me see if I can find a good meaty one in here.

You got to be nervous because what, like, I assume you're gonna hand me a piece.

Yeah, you can pick one if you want to. Oh, that one looks good.

That one?

That one looks good.

That does look good.

That's Pure beef jerky right there.

Burf Tiki live.

Tell me how that is.

Oh, that's yummy. Carry on with the show. I'll be here for a minute.

Yeah, that's good stuff, isn't it?

That is really good.

Yeah, I'll tell you this, like, I'm— I can't buy beef jerky. Because—

You made this?

Yes.

You bought this?

No, 100% made it.

Did you get Kim to do it for you?

No, no, you think, you think she has the patience for this?

She doesn't have the patience for you.

It's true. All I know is that I, I can't buy beef jerky anymore because it's terrible compared to this. Yeah, you're surprised.

I am. Yeah, that's good. It's very good.

Yeah, I got more for you.

All right, what, what flavors am I getting here?

Uh, well, there's, there's a lot of different flavors. Um, this is pretty— it's pretty salty. And, uh, I mean, there's, there's a whole bunch of stuff in there. It's got some brown sugar in there even.

Um, but I'm chewing on the microphone.

I'm just gonna move it right over here. Sorry, I can't help but just sit here and relish this moment of surprise in your voice, in your eyes, in your throat.

So I have good news for you, Kev.

Okay, what is it?

When I inevitably, you know, destroy this show, you got something to fall back on. Yeah, no doubt.

So I can make beef jerky and sell this if I want to? That's what you're saying?

I mean, don't tell the FDA or anything. You'll make more money anyway.

I can't, I can't ship it to your house, uh, not without one of those food handling licenses. And if you think I'm getting one of those, you're crazy. Absolutely crazy.

I've talked to people that, like, I have a friend that started a hot sauce company, and she was, she was telling me about all the hoops she had to jump through in order to To do all that nonsense.

Yeah. Oh yeah, it's from what I understand, it's nuts.

But I'm not saying it's not necessary. We all need to be able to eat safe food. Quit crying, you babies.

That's delicious. It's delicious.

This is this is what's stopping you from getting delicious jerky. It's the government.

Yeah, exactly.

They don't want you to have tasty things.

Yeah. So I've been waiting for this moment to just hand that over to you on the show.

I told you I was going to surprise you with something.

You did. No.

I, I did not suspect jerky.

No, I think this is the first time there's been like a—

Although it's one of the more pleasanter surprises I could have imagined.

Oh man, that's good stuff. Yeah, so since you're chewing, I'll just tell you, um, man, last week was really, really good. It's been a while since I've just kind of unplugged, gotten away, and, uh, that's what we do for Thanksgiving. We, uh, we get away To where nobody can get us. Like, the, the cell signal sucks. And so I didn't even— I opened up my computer yesterday and I was like, this is the first time this has been on since Tuesday.

And that's a good feeling.

That's a good feeling.

It's rare, that's for sure.

It is a rare feeling, but it was really good. So, um, how are you doing?

I'm doing much better now. I got some protein in me because There's more for where that come from. I am currently no bourbon Craig.

Oh, I see that.

Tea Craig.

Tea? You needed something.

Which translates into angry Craig, really.

I mean, there's not enough caffeine, right? Or is it decaf?

That's decaf.

Oh my goodness.

So I may have to like step outside here in a minute and get me some caffeine. Um, yeah, but okay, but I'll, we'll, I'll make it to Christmas. It'll be fine. I'll be a happier, jollier man after that.

And speaking of, speaking of happier, jollier, did you, did you eat as much as I did over Thanksgiving? I mean, I, I will say that, that our episode came up multiple times. I'm like, how are you gonna do that turkey? How are you gonna do that turkey? How's it gonna turn out?

You know, I got a little story for you, Kevin. Okay, so we did Thanksgiving with my parents the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

Oh, OK.

And by luck and circumstance— and you'll appreciate this. Not all of our listeners understand all the, uh, troublesome ways of my family life. Um, but it is very rare for my family— and by my family, I mean my wife and my kids.

Sure. To be family.

holiday alone.

Any holiday. Well, you've got too many people that live close with you or around you or near you. Close.

Mm-hmm. But that's the way it worked this year.

What?

Yes, we ended up getting to have Thanksgiving Day here.

Thursday. Yes. With Just your family?

Yes.

Where was everybody else?

Other places.

Wow. So, and how did that feel?

I love my family.

Uh-huh.

It was glorious.

I bet it was.

Except—

Yes?

The turkey went south.

Oh my gosh, we literally went over this last week.

So—

Did you brine it?

Oh, yeah.

Wet or dry?

Wet.

OK.

It— this— so— and you'll understand why here in a minute. It was not a failure on my part.

OK.

It was a bad bird.

Oh. Yeah, I— I've been there.

And I thought it was me. And I told my wife, I think I lost my turkey mojo. I said, I think I got cocky on the podcast. And I lost my mojo.

No pun intended. Get a little cocky. That's right.

Let's go back to chicken.

Oh man.

But man, like while it was cooking, it didn't smell right.

Oh.

And I took it out and it was like eating tin foil.

Oh.

It was, it was no good. I had to spit it out.

Really?

Really bad. I tried to hang in there. It wasn't happening. And so I had another bird that had been thawing, and so I went ahead and brined that one.

Okay.

And we were having— we were gonna have kind of a Friendsgiving on Friday.

All right.

For some, some folks that were, you know, not necessarily family, but they're family.

Yeah.

And, and so I was like, you know what, I'm gonna get back on this horse.

Okay.

Do this thing.

Yeah.

The bird was delicious.

Oh.

And I used the exact same technique.

Weird.

I didn't use the same brine, but like, you know, because that other bird didn't work. He did terrible things in my oven.

Yeah. And it was—

yeah, it was no good.

Wow.

But the, the other bird turned out great. Okay, so perfect. Got the mojo back.

Got it back.

Well, and I kind of feel like going and getting another one just because it's one, I know they're on sale.

Shoot. Yeah.

2, I was like, I just wanna see if— I think I got another one in me.

That's, that's not something I ever say, is I got another turkey in me.

Another turkey.

Because I do not like that. I will tell you that, um, at Meat Fest on Friday, which is what we have, right, for our Thanksgiving, um, on Friday, not Thursday. Thursday's the big meal, it's got all the stuff. Friday is Meat Fest. Do you want to hear all the things we had?

Sure.

Well, first of all, I will tell you that we had a rack of ribs that we just threw in the fire. I mean, you opened it up and went, ew, that's no good, that's no good. And so we threw a whole rack of ribs away, which was sad. But we had 3 other racks of ribs.

I tried to chew on one.

So we, uh, yeah.

Did it just smell bad or was it overcooked?

No, it— we didn't even there was no cooking to it. We never got it.

Oh, they were bad before you—

They were bad.

I gotcha.

We opened them up out of the package and went, smell this. Like, one of the family's members went, what? Just started dry heaving. We're like, okay, I think those are going in the fire. Uh, so we had 3 other racks of ribs. We cooked a brisket. We cooked a pork loin that was seasoned up. Uh, we cooked another pork loin that was butterflied, and then we took boudin and cream cheese and wrapped that inside the pork loin. So that was unique. Um, we did multiple—

I noticed you didn't say it was good.

No, it was good. No, it was very good. Do you like boudin?

It's— I, I sometimes. It depends.

Okay.

Boudin's different for different people.

It is?

And, you know, but it's like, that's like, it's like one of the most polite things you can, you can say about food. It's like, well, that was unique.

That was different. Yeah, unique.

Um, it tasted like—

Yeah, but it did. Yes. Uh, let's see, we had 2 chickens, we had a bunch of chicken thighs that we wrapped in bacon.

Nice.

We did, um, about 3 dozen jalapeño poppers that were cut in half, so we had tons of those. We had a pork belly that we did burnt ends with.

Nice.

We had a lot of sausage, um, brats. We had like a couple dozen brats or something like that. Um, and I'm sure I missed— oh, uh, there was something else. Oh, beef ribs.

Okay.

We had a full rack of beef ribs, which was a lot of beef ribs.

Yeah.

Um, so we had a lot of meat.

Nice.

And we had 3 smokers going. at one time. And probably the craziest one, have you seen these trash can smokers?

Oh yeah.

All right, well, we did one of them.

Nice.

One of my— one of the relatives has one. It's a—

it's called a barrel smoker. Yeah, I mean, you make them out of like old, uh, like barrel—

yeah, like drum barrels. Yeah, it's like a 55-gallon drum.

One of my employees made one.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's really unique. You hang everything And, um, it did really well. I mean, we hung 3 racks of ribs and the bottom rib, I mean, you just got to throw it away. But, uh, the brisket that we did on it was really, really good. So anyway, very cool.

So yeah, successful meat day.

It was successful. So what are we doing today, man?

We are talking about this, uh, well, it's not really new, but it's a smart plug from TP-Link. Uh, it's Kasa's line. and it is the Smart Wi-Fi Plug Mini.

Okay.

So, and I got a bunch of these for my garage actually, um, and I was showing you how I wired up my, my shop lights, right, with one of them. Um, but, and I don't know if they're still on sale. I bought— it was a pack of 4 on Amazon. I think it was like $22.

Dude, I mean, smart plugs are typically that much for one.

For one?

Yeah, yeah, like the Philips Those are like twenty to twenty-five bucks apiece.

Well, and some of it some of it depends on the feature that the the plug has because I have I have a smart plug by what's it starts with an L. Uh huh.

I can look at the app.

Hang on.

Uh huh.

Yep. I'm gonna.

Yep. Lou. Uh huh. Yep.

Hang on.

Luminex.

Lutron.

Lutron. La la la la la la la.

Yeah, no, Lutron. Um, and so that one I think was $40.

Oh. Just for the plug. Goodness.

But it's the only one at— and I don't know if this is true anymore, but at the time it was the only one that had a dimmer function for the smart plug.

Oh, OK.

And it also came with a Pico remote.

Ooh. OK, so you could, like, tell it, set to 20% or 40% or whatever. Right.

As long as it was a dimmable bulb or light or whatever.

Sure.

I have them wired up to 4 LEDs so it can simultaneously dim those 4 LEDs.

Okay.

So it's a, it's a cool— and it's, you know, that one's voice controlled as well.

Yeah.

So anyway, that was— and so right off the bat, I can tell you this one does not have that feature.

This is okay.

This is an on-off switch.

Sure.

Pure and simple. Yeah. So anything that has a dimming feature is automatically going to be more expensive. And like you, you, you, probably— if you're listening to the show, you probably know that when you just go buy like a light switch.

Oh yeah, the dimmable light switches are like 4 to 5 times more expensive than a regular one, if not more, right? Like, they're—

I mean, and, and like, and there's even like levels of dimmer packs and things like that.

I mean, you— well, more than that, because so you can just get a regular old light switch for like 58 cents or something, right? Right. You get a dimmer and it's gonna be 20 plus.

Typically. It depends. Yeah. Um, like some of those slide and click ones aren't that expensive. Yeah. I saw some new ones though that are like industrial. They're like the, uh, metal attenuators on them. And those are cool looking. And it was, it's, uh, I mean, I'll have to go back and find the line because I want people to be able to find these. They looked like, um, the light, they, you know, they made dimmer switches which, you know, rather than sliders just had knobs that you could turn up. Right. You know, and, but it then also had on-off switches, but instead of like regular on-off switches, They looked like the toggle switches from like the inside of like an airplane.

Oh, nice.

It's really cool looking.

Okay.

Like very like industrial.

Right.

And it just, but they were ridiculously expensive.

Yeah, $400.

Yeah, it was something like that. So anyway, these one, so I picked these up because the price was awesome. Again, I don't know if that's the case right now, but they've been on sale on there for a while now. I imagine, I mean, today's Cyber Monday.

Right.

If you're not gonna get a price on them today, it's, you're, you know, yeah, probably just not gonna happen.

Sure.

Um, but these are super cool, man, because with my Lutron ones, uh, I have to have a home hub.

Yeah.

That connects all my lights and all my Picos and all that kind of stuff. And, and then that's connected to my router, and that has to be actually hardwired into my router.

Okay.

It doesn't have like a You can't just put it anywhere.

You can't use a wireless hub. It's gotta be hardwired.

It's a hardwired hub.

Yeah.

But this doesn't require a hub at all.

Okay. So is it its own hub or how does it work?

So you, I mean, it almost works like an Alexa device because once you plug it in, it goes into connection mode and it starts looking for a Wi-Fi signal.

Right.

And so you use the app to then connect it to your Wi-Fi router.

Interesting.

And it just, it just acts as its own device at that point that you can then control through the app.

Okay.

Um, you can also then connect it to Google or, uh, uh, an Amazon device.

Okay.

And you can activate voice control through that.

Nice.

It's, I mean, like when I, when I say it's super easy to set up, you go into the app and it says, do you want to turn on voice control? Yes, I do. And then it takes you over to the Alexa app and it just connects it. And it's like a TP-Link, like just a little slider that you turn on.

Nice.

And then you have voice control.

Yeah. So whenever you showed it to me, you just told it— told Alexa to turn the shop lights on, right? And it did. Yeah. And I was like, that's beautiful.

Yeah.

Because—

and I did it that— and I, I made sure that I had something that was compatible with Alexa because my plan was to hardwire the lights in my garage into a plug bank in the ceiling.

That you would not be able to— I couldn't reach. Control unless you wired something else. And just like, come on.

Yeah, it's just annoying. Well, I mean, and like these smart— I don't know if you can see this. They have like— I've got one in my hand.

Yep.

Um, they've— it's got a little button on the side and that's just an on-off switch.

Oh, so you can actually press the button.

Yeah.

If you want to and it'll activate it at that point.

Okay. Do you have one of the other ones?

I do.

Yeah, yeah. I haven't used all of them yet. Let me see that real quick. One of the cool things I really liked about this one too is they fit real nice over an outlet.

Oh, okay.

So like a lot of times you get these things and they kind of take up like a lot of space. Like the one in my house, if you were to put it on the top plug, you wouldn't be able to use the bottom plug.

Yes.

So, but these, I mean, it doesn't matter. I mean, it's—

Right.

They fit. really, really nice.

Okay.

In there. So you can, you can have those. And I should also mention, they, uh, they have several different devices within this family of products. Um, so they have like cameras and they have outdoor plugs, they have power banks.

Yep. They've got lights, like bulbs.

Yeah, they, they have— the thing that they don't have that I wish they did is a door lock. And just because I really like how they've designed their system where you don't need the hub.

Right, simple.

It's super simple.

Yeah.

And I was trying to remember, what's some of the other stuff? Yeah, so no hub required, compact design. And really where these things shine is within the app. The app gives you a lot of power to do a lot of different things with these devices. You can put them on timers, you can set up motion sensors, you can do all kinds of stuff that you can do And then be able to do it with voice control as well. The thing that I tested tonight is I was down at my office and I pulled up the app and it showed me that the lights were off.

Okay.

And I was like, all right, I want to see if I can turn the lights on from here.

Oh.

So I went ahead and turned them on and the app indicated that the lights were on. And so I drove home. When I got home, I went in the garage and Sure enough, lights in the garage were on.

Wow.

So, and it, it said that it could do that, but sometimes that ability is a little wonky.

Yeah.

You know, and like, you just never really know. And so I was like, I really want to know how this thing works.

I mean, you're, you're at that point, you're relying on your smart device at home to do what it does, right?

Yes.

So as long as your, your equipment at home is working, yeah. Yeah, hopefully it'll work.

And so, you know, it— you know, I guess the only way that you would really know is if you had some sort of video where you could like pull up a shot and go, is that light on? I don't know.

Sure.

So it— all the— all that said, I mean, like, it's thus far been a, a fantastic purchase.

Yeah.

Um, and, and the other cool thing about it is it really gives you a lot of freedom to name these things.

Okay, that was going to be another one of my questions. So does it have a list of options, or can you change those options out? What is that like?

Yes, so it has a preset list. Okay, you know, of typical things: living room, dining room, family room. Yeah, it's like living room lamp or— okay, whatever. Okay, is it primary bedroom or master bedroom? I don't remember.

Okay, now we're gonna find out.

Yeah, I, I really could care less if my app is PC.

Um, well, you bought the white ones.

Yeah, so if that's upsetting you, you need better things to be upset about.

Um, sorry. Yeah.

Um, but yeah, so I don't know.

Were shoplights one of the options?

No, it wasn't.

OK.

I created that one.

OK.

Because that's what it was.

Yeah.

Um, and, and so, but like, It— I haven't had a problem with it. And Alexa immediately already knew what I was talking about when I said shop lights because I labeled that. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, that's pretty impressive.

Yeah, it was, it was really seamless. Like, I was like, there's no way this is gonna work the first time. And it was like, boom.

So this is gonna be a really short episode because it sounds like this thing just works. Yeah, I mean, it does what you want it to do.

It does, it does exactly what you want it to do. I mean, it turns things off, it turns things on, and you can do it remotely, or you can do it with voice control. Um, you know, or you could like the app, the app, the app you can just use as a toggle switch.

Sure.

And I don't know, I don't think it has a watch, uh, app. I haven't, I haven't actually looked into that. Um, but I don't use my watch for stuff like that.

Yeah, I, I don't either. So, but I, so the, the biggest thing to me is that it works with voice control. Yeah, to me that's the biggest thing. But it, but it doesn't work with, uh, with Apple HomeKit, right?

Uh, it's not listed as one of the— yeah, as one of the things. Is that— is that still a thing?

Well, yeah, I mean, because— yeah, it is. I mean, I still use it at my house, and I know that there are still people that are putting stuff out since—

I mean, for example, I mean Is it not listed on their website?

Apple TV— well, I'm looking here. Um, I don't see it. Um, I know it's not Google and Alexa, but I'm not seeing anywhere where it even tells me what, uh, smart devices it works with. So I'm probably missing something. But I— no, I mean, it's one of those deals where Apple TV still has the ability to be a hub, and so a lot of devices I think are still being created that have that functionality because people still are using it. Um, now I think Apple has pulled away from kind of the whole hub idea, um, differently than they— they, they went all in and then nobody liked it.

Nobody wanted— well, no, nobody wanted to pay.

It was too expensive. Yeah, so nobody wanted to pay for it, and so it didn't really take off. So I think they kind of went, okay, this isn't working, so they pulled back and It's not really a thing like it used to be.

Yeah. So, yeah, so I, I will say this. I mean, like, it could have been a strategic decision on their part. You know, I'm not a programmer, but talking to several, apparently Apple's not easy to work with. Yeah. When it, when it comes to doing things like this and getting on their platform.

That, that's part of the issue. I mean, they're very proprietary. So whenever you got a lot of devices, they're going, look, I just want this to work. I don't want to— I don't want to go through more hoops than I've already got to go through to get this thing developed. Now I got to figure out how to get it to work. Yeah, on, on people's platforms. Uh, yeah, Google and Alexa are like, bring it on.

Yeah.

More stuff for us. You know, Apple's like, oh no, I don't want you to be over here. Yeah, yeah, that's how they talk.

I don't like the outsiders. Well, that's— they're in California.

And yet— sorry, Haley— my whole life is surrounded by Apple products.

So I like their products, I just don't want to, you know, like, I'll use your phone. Yeah, we're probably not going to go get a cocktail together.

Probably not. Yeah, that's okay. Haley was close not too long ago. She was in Austin, wasn't she?

Got my feelings hurt a little bit too.

She didn't even like text us or anything.

Yeah.

Huh.

I'm gonna hold on to that one for a while.

I think, um, I think we learned something. That's all I'm saying.

Well, she did go to Austin.

Oh, if you know, you know. That's right. All right, what else does it do? Anything? Um, I mean, you mentioned, I think, everything. Schedules is It's kind of a cool thing. I mean, yeah, I mean, whenever you're—

I mean, it offers a lot of automation.

It's nice for, you know, in the morning, at night, that kind of stuff, you know. Um, I, I think this would be a really cool thing right now specifically for like Christmas trees, you know.

For, for, yeah.

So I—

that's one of the things I'm actually going to try it on is my Christmas tree. Um, the— but they also— the like Christmas lights because they have the outdoor ones.

Oh, so these specifically are not the outdoor ones. These are the indoor ones. These are the indoor ones. But, um, but they have the outdoor ones that—

Yes.

That would be, that would be really good. I'm looking at plugs right now. So they've got, uh, the mini, they've got a—

Well, here, let me, let me go through some of these other devices that you can add. So they have doorbells, like smart doorbells with cameras.

Okay.

They just have cameras in general, smart plugs, and they have 2 different kinds of— uh, wait, hang on. They have a standard smart plug, the smart plug light, the HomeKit smart plug. So that might be the Apple HomeKit.

Okay.

They might have a separate one just for for that. Um, they have a 2-plug outlet, a smart outlet, a smart power strip, a smart outdoor plug, and a smart outdoor plug with 2 outlets.

Okay.

Um, so there's, there's all those plugs, but then they just have, you know, all the smart lights, and they even have like the LED strips that are smart strips. They have smart switches, smart routers, uh, range extenders, and sensors. And those are like the motion sensors where you can set up some automation Like if you see movement, turn this light on for 5 minutes or, you know, whatever.

Yeah.

So cool. Now some of these, um, some of these other devices do require their smart router.

Oh, okay.

So just keep that in mind.

But things like the light strips are kind of cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think most of the devices though, like, like the smart plugs, all the, all those different plugs I read off, I don't think any of those require The smart router.

Okay, cool. Well, it's a— okay, so here's the thing. It's a simple device that works. Yep. And it's cheap. Yep. So comparatively, yeah, but I mean, you get 4 for $22, you said? Yeah, I mean, they're $5 apiece.

And I don't know that— I don't— I haven't seen these in stores.

I haven't seen them either.

Um, so, uh, the, the website says control your home from anywhere.

But you can't buy them anywhere. Ah, that doesn't say—

it doesn't say that. No, that would be terrible copy.

Terrible. No, but I mean, who needs to buy stuff anywhere whenever it's available on Amazon? Yeah, I mean, say what you want, Amazon's awesome, dude.

I mean, like, ever—

they—

so they opened a distribution center closer to us. I don't know if you knew this, but like all the packages that you and I ordered up until like 3 months ago were coming from downtown Houston, right?

I did know that.

And so now they're in, uh, Spring, which is just like 30— it's, it's 30, 40 minutes from here.

Yeah, our stuff gets— I mean, a lot of next day stuff.

So have you seen it?

No, where is it?

Massive. It's right off 99 near 45. Oh yeah, it's like, uh, like if you don't live near here, you don't care, but it's like, it's like 99 and Gosling.

Oh, okay. Yeah, okay.

It's huge.

I bet it is. Yeah, so cool.

Hey man, that's it. All right, man, that's all I want to talk about. I'm done talking.

Yeah, okay. Well, we're gonna sit here and eat some more beef jerky while y'all are out doing whatever you're doing. Thanks for downloading today's episode. It has been fantastic. And, um, we're, we're really excited, um, to see what we got coming. We got a lot of stuff, you know, kind of that we have in our, in our In our tank, so yeah. Yeah, thanks for downloading. Subscribe if you have not already done that. You know, make sure that you're getting all of our content. We're available pretty much on any platform. So go ahead and click the bell. Click the subscribe. Leave us a five-star rating review. That would be really, really helpful. We're trying to move up in the rankings. So yeah, we're gonna do that.

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So please do that. We appreciate you. And until next time, we'll see you later.

See ya.