Making Our Home Smarter with the Tap of an App

I have written quite a few times recently about our different homes and how our last house was quite segmented (Tyler and I each had our own private spare “fun” rooms). In our current home, we have an open floor plan and we downsized considerably in favor of location. This has caused quite a change in our daily habits, our home workspaces and even our parenting of Fox.

We spend almost all of our time in our living room/kitchen area and Fox has free reign of the area as well as the bedrooms. When smart technology for lights and switches first started to emerge, we were still in our old home and the prospect of adding some convenience was daunting even for a small section of our house. But as we near the end of 2016, the tech has improved and the prices have dropped, which leads to a perfect storm just in time for the holidays.

Our kitchen has recessed lighting and our living room has a large arc floor lamp that extends over our seating area. As we wind down for the evening, it’s often hard to find a happy level of brightness for everyone. That’s where the TP-Link smart home series of products comes into play. I was lucky enough to partner with TP-Link to transform our living room and bring it into the future. Within a few minutes Tyler was able to install the LB130 Wi-Fi LED Bulb with Color Changing Hue into our lamp, plug in the HS110 Wi-Fi Smart Plug and wire in the HS200 Wi-Fi Light Switch. Before I could even open my computer I was in the middle of a wild light show, all controlled via the TP-Link Kasa app.

We have already set up automatic schedules for our lights to dim slowly at night and turn back on in the morning. The best part, though, is the ability to control all of our lights from either of our smartphones. If you remember, Fox wasn’t a cuddler for most of his life. That has changed recently and I take every chance I get to let him fall asleep against or on top of me. I can easily shut off all of our lights with a few taps on my phone without having to move. Even better, if you have an Amazon Echo, all of your lights can be controlled via voice commands.

There are two often overlooked benefits of the HS110 Smart Plug. First, it is PERFECT for Christmas lights. Simply plug your lights into the plug, and you can program automatic on/off times and switch it from the app. No more crawling under trees or old fashioned mechanical timer switches. Second, the HS110 has a built-in energy monitor which can be used to track the power consumption of any device plugged into it. This makes it easy to find energy hogs and save money on your bill. The device can literally pay for itself in saving money elsewhere. 

While I let Tyler handle most of the set-up, it was surprisingly fast and easy (how many bloggers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?). If you need a quick and easy gift this holiday season or want a simple upgrade that can change your every day life, be sure to take a look at TP-Link’s line of smart home devices.

Check them out in action in this video!