Kasa Smart Reviews

by Wombatmatty

I don’t get it. For years now The policy has been to limit the total number of smart actions you can have for your devices to just three. That means you can only turn off three devices automatically so many minutes after they are turned on. What if you have four lights and four switches? Three of those can turn off automatically a predetermined time period after they are turned on but the fourth must be turned off manually.

Think about exterior lighting that might come on due to a motion sensor. Or that same lighting that you might want to turn off automatically because you forget when you come into the house. You have four switches. Sorry you are only allowed three smart actions. I have nearly 100 devices. You’d think that after I have invested so much money that you could allow a few more of my devices to send requests across the network to automatically turn off. Mind you, when purchasing the devices and it talks about these smart actions, nothing has mentioned about this limitation.

Apart from that, the user interface screen could use an update. With nearly 100 devices, it takes a while to find the one you want. I could deal with having two or three buttons wide on my screen instead of one row per item. And it would be nice if when I am trying to toggle the circular on off button on the right side if it would not think I am trying to tap outside the button and take me into the device details instead.

by BarelyToleratingComputers

Several obvious deficiencies in the Kasa app. The only ways to organize devices on the Home Screen are groups and by product type. The later is stupid as a default. Groups are all on or all off. Product type is useless as soon as you have more than a handful of devices of different types. Tp-Link needs to look at how real people organize their smart homes. We have areas meaningful to us - maybe rooms, maybe some function we do, with multiple devices of different product types in that area. Being able to group devices by these areas means quick access to relevant smart devices without sifting thru all the other irrelevant devices. Then we turn on or off or otherwise adjust the devices from that area that we need. I’m talking about how the bulk of Home Screen works - the device list. Update this!

Other stupid stuff - only 3!smart actions can be enabled. Why bother? Sounds like a toy, not a serious tool. Controlling other smart devices with one? Uh, not Kasa. One device can control one other. IFTTT is a basket case, so Kasa needs to fill the void. Oh, and only switch product types can controls other devices? Is this a production app or an early beta?

Get into the real world Kasa.

by Faa440

Appears the developer decided to dumb down the latest app version 2.9.0 making it more confusing. Yes they added window dressing, but on the technical side, they took away one of the greatest features of KasaSmart . When you go into the Advance section of KasaSmart , you used to see the signal strength indicator in decibels and that gave you the opportunity to fine-tune the smart device to your router such as reorientation of the router’s antennas. I should say this is a very important feature because the tp-link smart devices are the worst clients in my network in terms of their ability to receive signals from my $400+ router. In the new app version, the developer converted the decibel indicator to the standard and very coarse Wi-Fi signal strength icon making it impossible to see any fine improvements. Why can’t you have both the decibel indicator and the Wi-Fi icon?
A second problem with the new app is that now Alexa is having trouble recognizing commands that was not a problem in the earlier version. I’ll be working through that over the next couple of days.

by 235th First Time Reviewer

Plug lite, 2-pack for $20 sounded like a very good deal. Unfortunately it turned out to be way overpriced since Kasa did not provide anything for the money.
Tried setting up one but it wouldn’t connect to my WiFi. After trying and troubleshooting for about 45 minutes I managed to make it work by directly connecting to the device. Set the schedule but could never connect to Remote Control server probably because it couldn’t connect to WiFi.
When I plugged the other one the Kasa app said it was preconfigured which is odd because it is supposed to be brand new. It had the same issue with it not being able to connect to my home wireless so again I connected to the device directly. Before I could set up the schedule it was already identical to the first device which is also odd because they were not in the group. I had different usage in mind (lamp and outdoor Christmas lights) and wanted different schedules but whichever one I changed the other one would change too. Again, very strange behavior for non-grouped devices.
Also tried at work and same behavior. Overall I wasted over two hours + time to write this review + time to return these bad boys.

by Uber_J

If you already purchase the device. I recommend you return it. This product notification can be adjusted from Super Annoying to still annoying. Person detection will detects everything else but an actual person. Sound detection will detects sound above 90db. Anything less are not detected. Patrol mode comes with a warning "Too much patrolling will damage devoid " Look like it design not to patrol. Their cloud subscription will only get you 20s footage from all the annoying notifications. Most of it are wind noise, or tree moving. The useful clip are only have 2s of the footage. If you stop your subscription, they delete all of it. Make sure you save all the 20s clip that it creates. Camera footage are not even close to 720. But the box will tell you 1080. It also price for a Chinese Manufacturer. If Annoying and frustrate are something you like. This product are your best friend. And the live view are not able to turn off sound from 2way comm. viewing footage not user friendly. It user Angry. It was a mistake paying for overpriced decorations. I dont see myself repeating this again. "USER ANGRY" compatible.

by Chaderbing

KasaSmart is fast and bug-free. Easy to use. Aesthetically pleasing. BUT, a few, necessary things are missing. 1. The ability to choose a specific light/dimming percentage (with the smart bulb). It’s crazy, but you have to choose a position on a slider and then hit save to see if you got the percentage you were looking to select. 2. The ability to offset the sunrise function (circadian). I want to utilize my smart bulb to imitate a sunrise earlier than the sun actually rises, in order to wake up more peacefully. Right now if I select the circadian function, it will begin getting brighter at 6:45am, but my alarm is set for 6am. What’s the point of imitating a sunrise if I can simply open my blinds? Maybe if my bedroom was in the basement it would be nice... 3. Include a gradual dimming transition option. I don’t want my bulb quickly changing from 20% to 80% in the blink of an eye; rather a slow transition from the previous set time. The workaround would be to create multiple set points on a schedule on my own to have it increase a few percentages every couple of minutes, but that takes me back to issue #1. You can’t simply choose 75%. You have to find it on an unmarked sliding bar. Fix these things and my review will be a boasting 5 stars and I will definitely buy more. Until then...3 stars

by Sashazur

The basic functionality is fine, but other than updates to support the newest Kasa products, in the two years I’ve used KasaSmart there have been no significant new features added or bug fixes made. Support is responsive but usually not very helpful. Here’s my wish list (the first two I told Kasa about nearly two years ago): - Allow smart actions to control scenes, not just devices (currently if your camera senses motion, it can only turn on a single light) - Fix the bug that causes the “automatically limit notifications” setting to be ignored (currently cameras will keep sending notifications nonstop as long as someone’s moving) - Add geofencing, or allow the Shortcuts app to turn cameras on/off which would do the same thing (currently there is no way to have your home camera only notify you when you’re away from home, for instance) - Fix the bug that temporarily causes cameras to appear offline or display the wrong camera’s view, when the camera is taking a little extra time to respond.

by Ebo Built

Would like to know if the KASA architecture supports the KAMI line of cameras since they’re both made by TP Link. Would be nice if they had drop down menus with video tutorials on set-up, programming, pairing, unpairing, etc.. The apps user interface is a little too spartan…. a little too “bare bones”! A new user has to “hack” their way through the set-up and programming protocols using a lot of their own “intuition” with KasaSmart …. which means a lot of time being wasted on trying what works and what doesn’t, and then having to remember all those deduced correct steps each time you add or subtract a new device to your system which may be months in between. And you should have a support portal to submit your questions and have the answers sent to a KASA user’s inbox housed within KasaSmart itself. I do like the overall design of the various devices though, simple, compact, sleek, and attractive.

E. J. ~ Lebanon NH

by AnSa1984

Let me first start by saying that I love Kasa and I have about 30 devices (bulbs, switches, and plugs) in my smart home. I have two requests for KasaSmart developer: 1) please enable the ability to activate more than three smart actions simultaneously. My home has no overhead lighting so I replaced the wall switches in every room with smart switches and then I placed smart bulbs in the lamps and my intention was that when you turn on the wall switch it would also turn on the lamps in the room. It worked perfectly for the first three rooms so I bought several more only to find out that KasaSmart only supports three smart actions at once. 2) My second request is to add the sunrise/sunset feature to the non-dimmer wall switch (HS100 I think?). You added the feature for the dimmer switch to be able to turn on at sunrise, but I have the older switch without a dimmer for my front door lights and given that sunset always changing and it’s getting darker earlier I have to manually change my schedule regularly. It would be great if this switch also had the sunset feature.
Thanks!

by Sweetpolly1

I wasn’t sure if this would work because my hse is old and my light fixture was bought in 2004 I only had this smart switch for a couple of days but so far I can talk to Alexa we’re getting along just fine she listens to my command at time I’ll let her rest and use KasaSmart on my iPhone to dim lights or turning lights off and on but so far I’m happy I’m still trying to figure out can Alexa dim the lights with the smart switch or do I have to use KasaSmart on my iPhone but she try’s lol one more thing I’ll say Alexa turn off switch and she would say in dinning room and I’ll say yes then she turn it off so thanks I’m buying more but without the dimmer because my other sockets doesn’t require a dimmer switch again I’m happy I’m disabled so at times it hard getting up do to my heart problems.

by Saucy No 1

I started with the little 2 pack starter kit and used this with my power strip to turn it on at night and off in the morning when I am not here. This power strip only charges my phone, watch and iPad most nights, but I have also had my xbox controllers charger and sometimes other things connected to the strip. It saves electricity instead of having the strip plugged in all the time. I also have a strip for my xbox, tv, and headset charger.
I have now bought more of these smart plugins and use them to turn off other tvs and xboxs on power strips when my kids arent listening and have a lamp in the living room I have set on a schedule to turn on before I get to the ground floor so I dont trip on anything on the floor the kids may have left in the middle of the night when they should have been sleeping.
I also own one of their light bulbs, but havent found a great use for it yet. I have used it here and there and think it’s a great idea. I have a neighbor that cant figure out how to turn off her outside lights and this would be great for her, but I still think the idea of this light is pretty cool.

by Leewos

Got one of the wall plugs which was bundled with the purchase of an Echo Spot. Set up took a few minutes, after I found the correct KASA App....the one with the blue&white arrow pointing up. You also have to be sure to set it up on your 2.4G network, NOT the 5G if you have it. Once set up, it works flawlessly, the verbal command of “lights on/off “ works with all 3 of my different echo devices ( an original large Echo, the Dot and the Spot). I can exit the living room with lights on then once in bed command lights out. No more bumping into furniture trying to find my way to the bathroom or bedroom. I’m buying the mini plugs to be able to set up a portable fan to turn on and off and one for use in the basement. I also like the ability to set it up for “ vacations”, to make the lights activate to look like I’m home. No more of those manual timers. THANKS KASA....

by Fjghfgdn

I had been wanting smart lights for a while, but didn't want to spend a ton of money. I ended up being able to 7 Kasa light bulbs on sale at Home Depot for just about 100 bucks so I figured I would give it a go. The lights were so easy to get set up and get hooked up to Alexa. I have a few other smart items that took me hours to get hooked up and I got all 7 light bulbs changed out and synced in under an hour. I got two of the color changing ones and 5 of the regulars. I love the color changing ones in the bedroom (cough cough) because you can set them to a sequence in the morning to slowly light the room to help me wake up.

It is also very nice being able to control everything from the smart phone app and I love that it tells you your usage and cost of running the bulbs. Overall a fantastic buy and I cannot wait to see what else TP-Link and Kasa offer.

by Mrs_Irie

KasaSmart is simple to set up, KasaSmart itself loads quickly and even with multiple lights and plug-ins, I can go right to the specific thing I want to control in seconds. If you are looking to set up on/off schedules, KasaSmart does it. KasaSmart runs smooth with Alexa as well. I like the setup of the main page in KasaSmart , since I named each thing, I can click immediately on the exact thing I would like to control. I also have two color lights that I use KasaSmart to change color and brightness. I’ve been using KasaSmart for over 6 months and its never thrown a fit and not worked. (*unless the internet provider that starts with Com and ends in cast was down as per weekly drill)
I really really appreciate the reliability of KasaSmart and the products it supports!! I do not work for any of the makers of any of this, I am just a HOMER for quality!

by Rorr Delmue

I had a problem with leaving my shop lights on, being that the shop is far from the house I would look out at night and see what I did or the kids did during the day. After running out in my undies too many times I had to come up with something different. So I thought I would try out the WiFi switches. I chose Kasa because they offered the full 15amp switch, witch I needed because the shop lights used the full 15 amps. These are so great I have since bought 4 more for the house and air compressor that also got left on.
I do have one complaint, I want more! There needs to be a 3way switch that can dim! Right now they offer a normal switch, dimmer, or 3way. Instead of these three they could just make one switch, a 3 way dimmer, then it could be used in every application. I would love a door bell cam, and a outdoor rated outlet! Please make more!

by Freezala

I just bought a house wired by a madman with dyslexia. Light switches are buried in bathroom cabinets or on the opposite end of the house where the light isn’t, outlets are all over the ceilings. I think the man was drunk and/or stoned when he laid out the wiring. These Kasa smart switches and outlets have made my life 100% easier! They come with simple instructions and online help if you get stuck. And if your crosseyed, color-blind, drunk & stoned electrician can’t tell red wire from black wire, the switch will click alerting you to a crossed wire. I had to think upside down to get it to work. I’m sure the man was on his head when he wired this house. Your phone app walks you through the steps and you have to link the kasa signal with your home’s wifi. Then you can control it from anywhere, set it on a schedule, or select away/vacation mode. Thank you Kasa for a brilliant innovation in home wiring.

by Disappointedgrl

I bought two sets of other Bluetooth enabled smart plugs. They were difficult to set up and required a 2.4 gh internet connection, which utilized a generic smart home app. (Note, I am an IT professional, so technology is my job, so when I say other smart plugs were difficult to set up—they were REALLY difficult).

This plug/company has its own app and is very nearly plug and play—none of the nonsense issues I experienced with the other brand (I think most of those issues arose from app updates that were out of synch with plug technology). I love that I can incorporate a photo of the item plugged into each socket, which makes controlling my devices a breeze! I’ve been using it on my deck to control my fountain and speakers. The plug has held up well throughout a month of heavy rain and nightly temperatures dipping into the 20s.

I highly recommend this smart plug and will be purchasing more.

by Craig809

I bought two minis to play with at Christmas and that was that for several months. When I needed to automate the shop lighting I took the minis down first and hooked them up to a display case and window lights. The changing from the home LAN to the new LAN took no longer than the original setup. The plugs are a bit big but they handle at least 7 amps and stay cool. After 3 days I went out and bought 3 more minis to finish the shop lighting.

The KASA app is simple and does everything I want display and room lighting to do. It even works from across town in less than 2 seconds. I particularly like the scheduler which I use to make Sure all the lights get turned off at the end of the day. Also, there’s something cool about standing in the middle of the floor, app in hand, watching the lights come on around you.

I will see how these go for a few months but I am considering two cameras for the shop and wall switches to start the home. Nice simple product that works.

by Bobert2019

I always look at the 1 star reviews of other similar products to get a feel for the worst flaws occurring among the competitors. The Kasa reviews didn’t exhibit the flaws that would affect me so that, along with a friends recommendation, product features and price convinced me to buy this smart plug.
I am not tech savvy so when I say it was super simple to install and set up you can take that to the bank. I only use it with KasaSmart on my iPhone so I can’t attest to use with Siri or other voice activated devices, which got a lot of complaints from other products. And I’ve only had it a couple of days and longevity of these products seem to be an issue too.
Mostly I was very pleased with the simplicity of set up and ease of use of KasaSmart . Also the fact that you can plug two of them into one receptacle is great. The lights are not too bright. It does not get hot and it does not make noise when it clicks on and off. These were the most common complaints of the competitors similar choices.

by Heem730

One day my neighbor comes to me and states that the Philadelphia Police department was knocking at my front door. Me and my family was on vacation Kissimmee Florida. (Fast forward) the police stated that they had received a call to my address of a report of a burglary in progress.
I state one sec I have camera footage. I go to the Kasa cloud to get a look at the person In question and I can’t even get to the footage because it’s jumping five minutes at a time. And it’s causing the officers to get frustrated because I can’t get to the footage. I push on the notifications to see the video and I have to literally wait until the moment happens to get the guy face. It took nearly an half hour just to get to the point of the guy walking up to my door. “PLEASE!!!!!!!! Give us a rewind and fast forward button” great app great camera please give us a rewind and fast forward option thanks in advance for your attention and assistance in this matter of mines.

by Tonygaglio

Be careful investing in KasaSmart and TP-Link products. I have WiFi at home with a dual 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz connections, and it pairs to the 2.4Ghz one. Periodically (once a month or so) KasaSmart loses connection to the devices I have installed, and they deactivate. The devices are grayed out and cannot be activated in KasaSmart or with a Google Home. They must be factory reset (using the device hard reset and the iPhone app and WiFi) every single time this happens. I’ve owned these products for a little over a year and this has happened four times. It is such a pain and takes about 30 minutes to go through the reset procedure with each of my devices. The next time it happens these are going in the garbage. It’s great when it works... but then it doesn’t. It’s been a bad experience and I hope these products improve in the future because it needs to be as seamless as possible, that’s the whole point of it being “smart”.

by LAX20531

I’m using the smart plugs that function beautifully when I’m home, but not once have worked properly when I’ve been away. I always receive a message claiming the time isn’t synced (despite syncing before I left) or the remote mode is off (it isn’t). These messages occur when attempting to create or modify schedules. Usually I’ll get at least one shot at manual control (on or off) before this isn’t possible either and the device will be permanently left in that mode for the duration of my absence. For example...I was recently out of town and forgot to set a schedule for my lamps, and since the only option was manual control (see first complaint) I ended up leaving my lights on 24 hours for a week, since it refuses to allow further control once I had them on. Of course when I returned all was back to normal.
I’ve toggled the remote mode on/off, firmware is current, iOS is current, app is up to date...all the obvious stuff. I think my best bet is to trash the plugs and start over with something else.

by Nisoplexis

I bought two smart plug minis and love them. It’s so nice basically having a remote control for lights and such. Setting them up was a little tricky since the directions are not completely straight forward, (wording is a bit confusing) but once you realize what they mean, it’s very simple. Setting a timer is nice as well. No more forgetting to turn the light off when you leave for work. KasaSmart is done well with only two shortcomings. 1)The icon color is disgusting! I know, I know, who cares right? ME! Sea foam green or whatever it is could be the ugliest color ever. Lol 2) The bigger problem is the widget!! It seems as though they just made it so they can say it has a widget. It’s large, ugly, clunky, and very unintuitive. In KasaSmart , the buttons are colored when on and grayed out when off. The widget is the same color regardless so you never know the status of the switch. There is only room for two switches in the widget unless you want it to take up half of your screen. There’s no reason they can’t port what’s in KasaSmart into the widget and minimize it to fit at least 4 switches in the same area. Everything else with KasaSmart and plugs works great but the widget is apparently the forgotten child of the tech area. Put some effort into that, and you get the last star.

by GigoMikol

Got my kasa spot and within an hour purchased another.

KasaSmart is great, and i like the fact you can customize when to send notifications to my phone however i feel 2 vital controls are missing.

1. Schedule - the ability to schedule when the camera should be on and off vs just being in “privacy mode” and/or
Schedule the camera to be on and available but not register events (like daycare mode)
Ex. I work from home on a certain day, i dont need an event of the camera in the office, but the camera can still be on

2. An “im home” and “im away” button for when you want to let the camera be either turned on but not register events or turned off for unexpected times that cannot be scheduled, like a party, work from home/sick day, visitors, or other where the camera and notifications would normally be tripped.
Or when you need to leave home and need to “arm” the camera in a time where the camera would normally be off
Maybe even an additional option to timeout after x hours
Ex. House cleaner will be here today, set im here mode for next (drop down) 2 hours , pause notifications, then resume
Recordings will still be made (or option for them to be off) but you wont be bothered by notifications or changing the settings all the tome at the push of a button

by SteveUpNorth

KasaSmart and the associated hardware are easy to set up, easy to use. I own two TP-Link smart mini plugs, so I can't speak of some other devices' app features. I'd like to suggest to TP-Link they consider adding one scheduling feature in KasaSmart : an offset from sunrise or sunset.

I live in Colorado, up against the Rocky Mountains. The literal sunset time is the trailing edge of the sun below the sphere of the horizon, but the mountains create a shadow which brings a reduction in sunlight well before sunset.

Because of this, having an "offset from event" adjustment would be quite helpful; then I could schedule 1hr before sunset or 1hr before sunrise for my device schedules. Not to be ungrateful for some other features of the system, but my $8 digital light timers have this feature. Otherwise I appreciate and enjoy the ease of scheduling and the remote control functions.

by Di99er

Finally an electrical outlet timer for the 21st century! I was reluctant to use this device at first thinking that it required registering with the manufacturers website to be able to use it and providing an gateway for hackers to access my network, it does not. I have it configured with my router and not registered, the only loss of functionality is not being available to control the timer over the internet, no big deal. I still have the control of the timer with KasaSmart on my phone and can control multiple units from KasaSmart . It is easy and intuitive to setup and operate, I can turn the lights in a room on and off from the comfort of my chair.
No issues or concerns thus far.
It would be nice to have an optional feature for the timer to select a random on/off time according the programmed on/off setting, perhaps a future upgrade?

by Jmishka

I have the KASA smart plugs and the KASA pan/tilt camera to watch my working dogs when I'm not proximal to them. I like these units so much I bought a set for a friend's birthday so he can keep an eye on his LE K9 when not at home.
I'm also looking into their outdoor security cameras and I like that these are KASA TP-Link as TP Link is a 'been around for awhile' trusted company.

You can pan/tilt the cameras I have at the touch of a finger via the KASA APP or set up patrol areas where the cameras cycle thorough areas in a room or outside on their own.

It's $40 a year to store camera data for 2 weeks time after the initial free trial but $40 isn't much; though if that's per camera it might get expensive depending on how many cameras you want to store data from.

My favorite feature is that I can access my equipment on my iPhone APP whenever I want/need, especially when away from home. If my phone is connected to the internet I can see what the cameras see and turn things on/off. Very easy to pair/sync the units with your home security enabled wifi. I don't believe these will work on an 'open' network.

I'm pleased and will buy more going forward. I have not experienced issues with KasaSmart .