Pro tip: That smart power strip I bought took 3 hours to configure correctly

I grabbed a TP-Link smart power strip last month thinking it'd help cut my standby power use around the house. The idea was to plug my TV, soundbar, and game console into it so I could kill them all with one button. But the setup app kept failing to find the strip, and I spent a solid hour just resetting it and trying different WiFi bands. Turns out my router's 5GHz channel was causing the issue, and I had to dig into my router settings to force it to 2.4GHz. Another two hours of googling and trial and error before I got all the timers set right for my morning and night routines. Now it's working fine and I'm saving maybe $15 a year on electricity, which feels silly considering the time investment. Has anyone else run into weird WiFi quirks trying to set up smart home gear for energy savings?

3 comments

3 Comments

nathanj5622d ago

Lol welcome to the "saving pennies while losing hours" club, sounds about right. At this rate it'll only take another 20 years for the time investment to pay off.

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blake69122d ago

Yeah and the worst part is it's always the tiny stuff that adds up. Spent 3 hours last weekend hunting down a 50 cent coupon for dish soap. Great, I saved a buck. Lost half my Saturday.

jamesm484d ago

Nathan, you're killing me with that 20 years bit (though honestly you're probably being generous). Last week I spent a whole afternoon driving to three different stores to save four bucks on laundry detergent. Figured out later the gas alone ate up two of those dollars, plus I was grumpy the rest of the day. So yeah, I'm basically paying myself minimum wage for my penny-pinching hobby, and I'm not even getting the satisfaction of a raise. But hey, at least my sock drawer is perfectly organized from all those hours I "saved" by not buying new ones.