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etechwire-blog · 6 years

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Best smart plugs and switches: the best plugs and switches for your smart home

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Best smart plugs and switches: the best plugs and switches for your smart home

The smart home is getting smarter, but two areas that are often overlooked are the humble power outlet and light switch.

There are plenty of energy savings to be had by investing in a smart plug and/or smart switch. By controlling your lights and other appliances with one of these babies, you’ll reap the savings of more efficient energy consumption.

But what are the plugs and switches that are worth flipping out over? We’ve gathered up a guide to show you the light to the best smart plugs and switches on the market.

All of the smart plugs and switches in this list have been tested by TechRadar, so you can rest assured that all have passed muster.

Belkin WeMo Insight Smart Plug

Monitor your energy consumption with a switch

Dimensions: 2.9″ x 2.9″ x 2.3″ | Weight: 2.84 ounces | Electrical ration: 120V/15A/60Hz/1800W

Features energy monitoring

Good smart home integration

App is poorly designed

The Belkin WeMo Insight is a neat little device. Well, it’s not exactly “little” considering it’s bigger than it looks in the pictures, so be prepared for a bulkier plug that covers the top outlet if you place it on the bottom one (the same isn’t true if you reverse the order).

That said, we consider the Belkin WeMo Insight Smart Plug to be the best light switch on the market. We like that it gives insights into your energy usage, and it gives you estimates on how much you’re spending on energy, too. This is great if you’re looking to cut down on your monthly power bill and be a little greener at the same time.

The one big drawback is that you do most of your work with the WeMo Insight in the app, and the app leaves a lot to be desired. Yes, you can turn off and on devices from the app home screen, but once you start going deeper, you run into trouble. It’s difficult to remove devices from the app, which is annoying.

One redeeming quality of the app is that you can use it to integrate your plug with other services, such as IFTTT, Alexa, Google Assistant, Works with Nest and (unofficially) Samsung SmartThings.

The only one missing from this smart plug house party is Apple’s HomeKit, though you can connect using a HomeKit Bridge, which Belkin sells.

Read our Belkin WeMo Insight Smart Plug review

iDevices Switch Wi-Fi Smart Plug

An inexpensive switch ideal for your HomeKit-connected abode

Dimensions: 1.65″ x 2.71″ x 1.57″ (42 x 69 x 40mm) | Weight: 3.3 ounces | Power input: 120 VAC, 60Hz

Works well with HomeKit

Has a night light

Needs more integration

There’s a reason this smart plug leads with an “i”; it’s built to work predominately with devices in the Apple ecosystem and with HomeKit. You can still use it with Android via an app, just know that HomeKit is clearly the favorite here.

The iDevices Switch Wi-Fi Smart Plug does converse with Alexa, so your Amazon Echo devices are compatible with this plug, too.

All-in-all, this smart plug is well designed, easy to use (especially within Apple’s walls, naturally) and generally works like a charm. It’s super easy to set up with your iPhone, and the app is great; you can use it to monitor your energy usage, broken down by day, week, month and year. You’ll get an estimate of your energy costs as well.

Oh, and did we mention this plug has as nightlight? The colored strip around the front serves as one, perfect if you don’t want to blind yourself when you get up to use the loo in the middle of the night.

Read our iDevices Switch Wi-Fi Smart Plug review

TP-Link HS200 Smart Wi-Fi Light Switch

Never get up to turn on a light again

Dimensions: 5″ x 3.3″ x 1.5″ ( 128 x 85 x 38mm ) | Weight: 133g | Maximum Power: 3.68KW

Easy to install

Very nice design

It’s big

Sure, you’ve decked out your home in smart led bulbs, like the Philips Hue, but if these aren’t connected to a smart switch, you lose connectivity if the lights aren’t controlled with a smartphone.

That’s where smart switches like the TP-Link HS200 come in. This well-designed switch may be connected, but it also gives a satisfying click, just like old-fashioned models.

But the similarities with old-school switches end there. This switch taps into an app called Kasa, which is equally well-designed. From the app, you can create different scenes that turn on or off certain lights, or set lights to turn on when your home’s motions sensors detect movement, for example.

The switch does work with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, so you can ask both to flight the TP-Link switches in your home on or off.

It may not be quite as good as the Belkin WeMo Smart Plug, but the TP-Link will make your home a more connected creature, which is great if you’re looking to take your home into the 21st century.

Read our TP-Link HS200 Smart Wi-Fi Light Switch review

Elgato Eve Energy Smart Switch

Make your ‘dumb’ appliances smart with this switch

Dimensions: 2.6″ x 2.6″ x 1.9″ (US) / 72 x 72 x 71mm (UK) | Wireless connection: Bluetooth Low Energy

Excellent energy monitoring

Apple HomeKit compatible

Expensive

Bulky

It’s all about ease with the Elagto Eve Energy Smart Switch. Installing and updating the switch is a snap; all you have to do is plug it into an existing outlet, then plug your appliance in.

The switch is compatible with Apple HomeKit, and, uniquely, it connects over Bluetooth, not your home’s Wi-Fi. Despite this unconventional (in the smart plug/switch space) connection method, Bluetooth works perfectly well here.

Like most smart plugs and switches, Elgato’s design is on the bigger side, though you can still access the top switch if you plug it into the bottom one. The app is easy to use as well and keeps tabs on your energy consumption, plus estimated cost of the energy your appliance is sucking up.

This isn’t the most enthralling – or least expensive – smart switch on the market. However, it hits a number of the right boxes, and looks good in the home.

Read our Elgato Eve Energy Smart Switch review

#home #plugs #smart #switches

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medproish · 6 years

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Back in 2012, I quit the internet for a year. Between May 2012 and May 2013, I didn’t use the internet or ask people to use the internet for me. To make it extra hard, I didn’t use text messaging either.

In a nutshell, I wanted to discover how many of my problems in life (lack of productivity, constant distraction, a sense running as fast as I could just to keep up) were the internet’s fault, and how many of those problems were just my own inherent faults.

Spoiler: it was mostly just me.

But if you’ve been following all the recent Facebook drama or you can’t stand the culture of Twitter discourse or you feel like the Instagram algorithm is harmful to your well-being and you’ve decided that you need to make a statement by quitting something, I might be able to offer some advice.

Boredom

You’re standing in line. You’re sitting down to poop. You’re waiting for the train. You just woke up. You’re about to go to sleep. You’re waiting for a commercial break to finish. It’s not even a commercial break; you just got antsy. You’re bored during a conversation. You’re not bored during a conversation; you just wanted to check something real quick.

You pull out your phone for whatever reason.

What app do you open? And why?

The first question is easy: for me, personally, it’s Twitter. For many other people, it’s Instagram or Facebook.

But the “why” question is harder to answer. There’s a great Why’d You Push That Button? episode that explores how app developers try to create a reward loop to incentivize you to keep checking back. For instance, I check Twitter because someone might’ve read one of my articles and liked it. Or, at the very least, someone might’ve liked one of my tweets or followed me or retweeted me. I’m searching for praise.

What’s messed up about it is I can check Twitter, see nothing new, put my phone in my pocket, and 15 seconds later, I’ll pull my phone out once more to look at Twitter again. It’s a little sick, to be honest.

So, let’s say Facebook is your app of choice. And I’m just going to assume you’re as hooked as I am. What are you going to do every 15 seconds with your thumbs if you quit?

I’m going to humbly suggest, based on personal experience, that you try boredom.

Boredom is a complicated thing. And most people are desperate to avoid it. It turns out that smartphones full of social network apps are a great antidote.

But if you choose to replace your go-to app, whatever it may be, with nothing, you can push through the discomfort of boredom, and you might find something cool on the other side.

Boredom is a dissatisfaction with what you’re doing. If you allow yourself to be bored for just a little bit, you can use that free brain power to decide what you actually want to do. Like, what will make you feel good in the long run, instead of what will make you feel good for the next 15 seconds.

You can use boredom as an alert that you might be living life on auto-pilot, instead of doing what’s actually important to you.

Boredom was seriously one of the best parts of my year without the internet. I eventually discovered new ways to waste time and fill the boredom void, and that kind of ruined everything. But for a few glorious months back in 2012, boredom was my guide to getting shit done and living right.

Loneliness

Without Facebook, or your own social network of choice, it’s very easy to not only be lonely but to actually feel lonely.

The solution is simple: reach out to people. Ask people to meet up. Talk to people on the phone. Text more, and reply to text messages instead of ignoring them. Express concern and interest in other people’s lives with words instead of only Likes and faves and reaction emoji.

Problem solved!

Just kidding. I mean, I do believe that doing those things is the correct antidote to loneliness. But loneliness, both the subjective feeling and the objective reality, never seems that simple to solve.

When I was off the internet, I had some of my best interpersonal successes in life. People said I was “intense” to talk to because I was so undistracted. I got to know family members and some close friends better than I ever had.

But simultaneously, I lost friends and ended up very alone.

What’s up with that?

Well, let’s just be honest with ourselves. The internet is where people are. If your friends are heavy Facebook users, and you quit Facebook, it’s a little bit like if your friends all hang out at a certain bar and you stop going there.

When I was off the internet, I didn’t have any serious blow-ups or falling outs with my friends. I just sort of fell out of step with them.

Here’s an example: let’s say a big new movie is coming out. It’s called Super Cape People. When the trailer hits, maybe one of your friends shares it on Facebook with a comment: “Omg I can’t wait for this.” A few of your other friends with similar tastes chime in. Maybe a dozen other conversations on social media sprout up over the following six months. By the time the movie comes out, you’re pretty sure who you know that wants to see this movie. Maybe you’re even in a Facebook Messenger group of buddies that obsesses over the Super Cape franchise.

But even if you just make midnight screening plans over plain old text message, you have all the social networking context to know who to include. You also know that your friend Jeff is on vacation so maybe you all agree to wait two days to see it with Jeff.

Without social media, you can’t broadcast your interests and availability to your friends. You have to do it in pieces. You need to hang out with people or talk to them on the phone or at least text them to let them know that you love all things Super Cape and drop heavy hints that you’ll be crushed if your friends see it without you.

And what if your friends don’t like phone calls? And what if they forget you quit Facebook when they send out a party invite? And what if your appointed liaison to all Facebook drama becomes tired of being your social networking sherpa?

After a while, if you miss enough parties and are absent enough friend group outings, your friends might assume you aren’t interested.

Sadly, I’m speaking from experience. I’m not trying to scare you away from quitting Facebook. I’m just letting you know that you’ll have to be very proactive to stay in touch with the people you care about.

I wasn’t, and it sucked.

Changing the world

Of course, your friends aren’t the only people using the internet. The internet is a marvelous megaphone. You can speak to anyone or everyone. If you’re super popular on Instagram, and you quit Instagram, you’re silencing your loudest voice. You’re limiting your reach. It almost feels like self-censorship. You set out to protest Facebook, but you’re only hurting yourself, right?

I don’t know. Maybe. This one is complicated.

When I was off the internet, I started a band. While I’ve always been interested in music, and I’ve been in bands before, there was something freeing about being off the internet, creativity-wise. I stopped comparing myself to the best possible version of the thing I was doing. Instead, I just asked myself: “Do I like this?” If I liked it, then I did it. I didn’t feel silenced; I felt free.

This has been freeing in other parts of my life as well. When I was comparing myself to everyone on the internet, I was afraid of programming, math, skateboarding, philosophy, and writing fiction. For each of those activities, I could point to a million people better than me.

I doubt this is debilitating for everyone, but for a long time, I allowed these worldwide comparisons to keep me away from things I was interested in because I knew I couldn’t be great at them.

I think the fear of “de-platforming” yourself gives Facebook and Twitter too much credit, and it also doesn’t give enough credit to what’s actually valuable about your voice and particular set of skills.

Just think about it: would you, given the choice, rather use your words to encourage someone you love or to win a Twitter debate? Are your talents more valuable to your friends and family or to the global economy?

Twitter virality is famously hard to engineer. Facebook makes you pay to actually reach your “audience.” Instagram will always work best for people who only show their most beautiful side.

But your friends love it when you sing at karaoke, no matter what you sound like. And your mom doesn’t doxx you when you disagree with her about politics. She might even change your mind, or you might change hers.

The impact you can have on the people close to you can be just as great, or greater, than the impact you can have on the “world” through your internet voice. Possibly not in quantity, but certainly in quality.

Does that kind of make sense?

Coming back

Hey, I’m not saying you’re going to crack. But you might return to Facebook after a week or month or year away. It might be in a moment of weakness, or it might be something you do deliberately after careful consideration of the pros and cons.

People ask me if I’d consider leaving the internet again. I always say “no way.” Not that I regret my year off the internet. I just feel like I learned the lessons I needed to learn, and the immense positives of the internet — even the weird and scary places like Facebook — outweigh the cons.

One thing I always tell people, and it’s something I wish I did a better job of putting into practice, is to “keep it small.”

It’s a reference to Fahrenheit 451, which is a book I read when I was off the internet, but it’s is also now a hip cultural reference because there’s a Michael B. Jordan movie coming out.

In the sci-fi world of Fahrenheit 451, everyone has these immersive TV rooms. Every wall of the room is a screen. And then they watch TV all the time. It sounds pretty fun, to be honest.

But, also, they burn books. So something isn’t quite right with this society.

When the protagonist meets an outlaw book collector, he’s surprised to discover the collector has a TV. It’s hidden behind a picture frame.

“I like to keep it small,” the collector explains.

Just because you use Facebook doesn’t mean it has to dominate your life. There are ways to “keep it small.” You can reduce Facebook’s ability to gather data on you. You can take the app off your phone. You can block yourself from using it during certain hours of the day. Despite the enormous efforts by internet giants to influence your life and control your behaviors, they haven’t won yet. You still have some power in this relationship.

In summary: book burning is wrong, Michal B. Jordan is possibly my favorite actor on the planet, and if anyone would like to watch his new movie with me it premieres in May on HBO and so let’s start planning this viewing party now. I will bring the chips and perhaps some beverages. Please respond to this invite even if you can’t make it. Thanks! See you there.

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topicprinter · 6 years

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Hi everyone! We have just published an article on Failory written by Amir Rajan, in which he tells the story behind his mobile game, called “A Dark Room”, which hit #1 on the App Store and grossed over $800,000. Sit down and read his success story. I hope you enjoy it and if you have any questions, I will happily answer them below. Sit back. This is gonna be a long one. TL;DR:Did the whole "get a degree, get a job" thing. Ended up being incredibly well paid, but horribly empty because of corporate America. Decided to rage quit, downsize (sell pretty much everything I own), and take a sabbatical. After binge coding on random crap, I partnered with a guy in Canada and ported a web based, incremental, text based game to iOS (A Dark Room iOS). Welp. It went viral and hit the #1 spot. That let me extend my sabbatical for another three years. I built four more games, none of which succeeded. Now I'm back in Corporate America (luckily only part time now... I make enough off my games and other assets to not have to work all year). The Long Version: Frustration:There is such a heavy dose of luck in success. There are those that will give one thousand percent, and because the roll of the dice wasn't perfect, nothing materializes. They have as much love for the game development as I have... they've worked as hard as I have... but just didn't get a kiss from Lady Luck. And it sucks. It just isn't fair that they want to create more than their next breathe, but can't catch a good break to devote time to it. They have to look over at those that have the privaledge to take multiple rolls of the dice, eat their cake and have it too, and if everything still fails, they get bailed out by mommy and daddy.I was one of the lucky ones. I saved up for ten years, and was able to role once. I hit lucky number eleven. And even then, I still find myself having to grind in a 9 to 5 yet again. Sometimes it's fine. Other times I feel like I should have never taken that sabbatical and remained ignorant of the pure joy that comes from putting yourself in a creation. Before Sabbatical:I did what you were supposed to do. Did well (really well) in school. Went to college. Got a degree in Software Engineering and Computer Science. Did internships and landed a job as a developer for an insurance company right out of college. I did that for three years (two years of internships, one year as a full time employee). I then went to work for a company that build veterinary software. Did that for a couple of years. I really really loved coding. Lived and breathed it. I interviewed at a prestigious consulting company and got in on the ground floor. Spent three years there only to be scooped up by another consulting powerhouse. So here I am with a disgusting $140,000 in total compensation. A sea of cubicals, souless sheep that want nothing more than to do their time and go home. I didn't belong cause I actually cared about my craft. I tried to compensate for my unfulfilling corporate work with open source development after hours. This put a toll on my familial relationships (spending 45 hours a week working, then trying to get another 30 hours on nights and weekends, doesn't leave much time for anything else). I was at the brink of collapse. Lose my sanity, my wife, or my job. I decided to get rid of the job. I liquidated my 401k savings (took all the tax penalties up front), and said "alright, gonna live off of this for as long as I can until I figure something out". During Sabbatical:It was great to breathe. I was 178 pounds at 5'8 (a little portly). That changed during the sabbatical. It took me three months just to figure out what my routine looked like. I'd code on whatever my heart desired. It was wonderful. I didn't even know what day it was. I didn't miss my stuff. I didn't miss the anxiety attacks I got Sunday nights before having to go to work. All of that gone. By month four I came across the web based version of A Dark Room. I immediately connected with its sparse presentation. I reached out the Michael and asked his permission to port it to mobile. That night I lost track of time. I blinked and it was 3am. I had never felt that kind of loss of time before. Nothing around me existed, it was just me and my creation. After another four months, A Dark Room was done and released to the App Store. It got a whopping thirty downloads the first day. I didn't care. Cause it was my creation and it was awesome. I redesigned so much of the original game. So much of me went into it. Oh and I dropped 30 pounds too. Best shape of my life.I still remember one of my happiest days. It was early January. I was working on a stupid little multiplayer fighting game written in JavaScript and Pixi.js. I didn't care that ADR was barely getting 10 downloads a day, I didn't care that my savings was dwindling away. I found what I was supposed to do (build digital, evocative experiences). Savings Dwindling:The party was over at this point. My savings was dwindling down. A Dark Room was making its meager two thousand downloads a month (after Apple's cut, taxes, and splits, that's not a lot of take home). I started interviewing again for a job. I was better mentally, physically. And I never want my wife's quality of live to suffer (she was still in college at the time). Being the main bread winner of the home, I knew I had to suck it up and go back to work. I wasn't okay with it, but I knew it was my responsibility. I was interviewing again for those big salaries. I would save as much as possible given my now humble lifestyle. After I had enough cash tucked away, I'd quit and try again. Then. A Dark Room went viral. Out of nowhere it made $800 in one day. Then it made $1,200 in one day. Then it made $5,000. Then it made $8,000. Then it hit the #1 spot and I woke up to a $20,000 sales report. A Dark Room at #1:A Dark Room stayed at the number one spot. I was elated the first day. I was on cloud nine the second day. Then reality reared its ugly face with a sobering message: "this will come to an end."So I waited for it to come to an end. I didn't sleep for 18 days. My life: was hitting the refresh button on the App Store, seeing if I had fallen. I'd do it every 3 hours on the hour, day or night. I did it for eighteen days. I read every review that came through. I'd refresh the page again and see if I had dropped. This was my life. I was waiting for all this success to end. 250,000 downloads later, A Dark Room finally fell from the #1 spot. It was over. From there sales dwindled. After another four months, I was down to 100 downloads a day. I had recouped what I had "spent" taking the sabbatical (and then some). My wife was tired of living in a cramped one bedroom apartment. So, we put a huge down payment on a house. After A Dark Room Fell:I built a prequel to A Dark Room called The Ensign. It did okay (nowhere near as successful.. but not bad... this was around the time I did my interview with Indie Hackers). I wrote a book about Surviving the App Store too. I put my heart and soul into a game inspired by Edwin Abbot's "Flatland: Romance of Many Dimensions" called A Noble Circle. I created a digital Go board after binge watching Hikaru no Go. I built a touched based mobile RTS called Mildly Interesting RTS (MIRTS for short). Every game had "me" in it. I didn't do ads, I didn't do micro-transactions, scummy energy bars, and all those other bullshit monetization tactics. I ported A Dark Room to Android (which was almost not worth it). I did everything to keep building games. I wrote about all of my journey, presented, did podcasts, hoping to inspire others. And yet revenue kept dwindling. The writing was on the wall. Everything I did after ADR wasn't enough. And I got a job. Now:So here I am. Updating all my games to work well on iPhone X. Because I love them. I try to build what I can in my free time. But I'm back in Corporate America (it's been ten months so far). Two months in, everything became too real. My journey as a game dev was really over. I got so frustrated. I purged everything online. Took the book down, deleted all of my Reddit entries, my developer logs, my open source games. I removed all of it. All the content I created felt like a lie. Cause even with all this "success", I couldn't keep my dream going. I felt so much worse off because I got a taste of a fulfilling life that I wish I had been ignorant to. It has been eight months since "The Purge". I'm much better now. Mostly invisible outside of already established relationships. I stream occasionally on Twitch, keep my games maintained, and work on new ones as time allows.I no longer deal with anxiety attacks Sunday nights at the thought of "clocking in" Monday morning. I'm at peace with it. The people I once called sheep, aren't that. They just didn't have the means to roll the dice. All code I see is beautiful in its own way. It tells a story of the resonable programmers put in unresonable situations. Again, I'm one of the lucky ones. Because maybe in another year, I'll have enough play money saved up to role the dice again. ‍Silver Lining:My games provide a stable passive income (and I have a decade worth of an emergency funds in the bank). A Dark Room recently hit the #2 spot overall on Google Play (pro tip: stick to iOS, the revenue is almost an order of magnitude better). More importantly, I've very recently acquired the platform that helped me create my labors of love: RubyMotion. So between my games, subscription revenue, and my well paying contract gigs, I do alright for myself. Thank you Lady Luck. And my sincerest, deepest apologies for the 99.9999% that will never see the "failure" I've seen. I really do empathize with you. And I wish I had a better story. ‍Numbers?I'm sure some of you are asking about numbers. Do you remember the title of this post? Do you remember what I said about the 99.9999% failure rate? Do your remember what I said about privaledge, and eating your cake and having it too? What's the point of talking about the numbers I'm making now? So you can dream about one day making these numbers too? You wont. Start with that and work from there.But if you really want numbers, here are some of the numeric sacrifices I made to role the dice once:Have a 4.0 GPA through High School.Graduate #36 out of a class of 800+.Go to a community college cause it's cheap.Work two jobs in the summer to pay for college and save up.Go to university in 2001 when it was still possible to pay out of pocket and graduate without crippling debt.Get a degree in something that is valued. Even better if you actually like what you got a degree in.Land a job right out of school that makes you $55k a year.Live off of $15k a year. Don't buy a house. Don't buy a fancy car. Just save.Do this for a year.Land a job that makes you $100k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution.Celebrate by living off of $30k a year.Do this for three years.Land a job that makes you $140k a year. Save the rest. Max out your 401k contribution. Get a Roth, put $5k a year into that.Celebrate by living off of $60k a year.Do this for three years.Don't have kids. Don't get sick. Don't have any catastrophic events that leave you bankrupt. Probably best to just not leave the house.Quit your job. Sell everything. Liquidate your 401k. Pay all the tax penaties.Live without insurance cause COBRA costs $2000 a month. Still Don't have kids. Don't get sick. Don't have any catastrophic events that leave you bankrupt.Now you can take a year and a half off and roll the dice once. Now you can read all the success stories online and dream that you'll get that too.But you probably wont. And that's okay. ‍Original article posted at https://failory.com/battle-scars

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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