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Whether you already have a full smart home or you're just dabbling with the idea, you're going to really like the Teckin Smart Power Strip. Featuring 4 independently controllable AC outlets and 4 USB charging ports (one of which is remotely controllable), this is the power strip you want in your dorm room, apartment, workshop or office.
Tech expert Dave Taylor of https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ programmed the Teckin Smart Power Strip with his Amazon Alexa system and demonstrates its use with both the Teckin Smart Life app and Alexa itself.
Check it on Amazon at: https://amzn.to/2MPPIo1
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0:00
A smart power strip for your smart home? Let's check it out
0:11
Dave Taylor here and I'm looking at power strips. Specifically we're looking at this
0:15
This is the Tekken Smart Power Strip and it's perfect for your smart home
0:20
As you can see, it has four USB 3 plugs and it has four AC outlets
0:27
The AC outlets and the leftmost of the USB plugs are all individually accessible via either their app
0:36
or through Alexa, or Google Home, or if TTTT or IFTTT. That actually lets you create rules like if I open the garage door, turn on the light, things like that
0:50
Now, four outlets, four USB charging port, it has a 5 foot cord so it's not a super long cord
0:57
The blue is obviously my own cord that I'm using. It is Underwriter Lab UL approved. It works with 110 to 240 volts, total max of 10 amps
1:07
Not a huge amount, but it does have an overload protection circuit breaker in it
1:11
which you just simply push the button and it resets things. Nice
1:16
And here's the only downside, is that it only works on a 2.4 gigahertz WiFi network
1:21
so if you only have 5 gigahertz, you're going to have to open up the 2.4 gigahertz too
1:26
But this isn't the only smart home product that has that issue, so probably you've already dealt with that and you probably have both networks running
1:33
So, just something to note. Now, it gives you the ability through both the Smart Life app and through the Alexa app
1:42
it gives you the ability to actually create groups, so you can also do things like, you know, turn on everything on the power strip
1:49
But instead of just talking about it, let's plug some things in. So, first off, I'm going to plug in my phone to the USB plug that actually works
1:59
that actually works with the smart home system. Then I'm going to plug in these two chains of, I guess they're Halloween lights
2:07
they're not really Christmas lights, right? So now, first off, don't have WiFi? No problem
2:13
You can push a button, everything turns on. And I just want to show you that the phone is now charging, right
2:19
Where this gets fun is when you actually use the smart home apps that are out there
2:24
So, you can use their Smart Life app and it works well enough. You can see here's the basic control, gives you things like timers, that's nice
2:31
But through a skill, it actually hooks directly into things like Google Home Assistant
2:37
or Amazon Alexa, which means that I can then use that and I happen to have my Alexa off camera, but she'll be able to hear or it will be able to hear
2:49
So, let's see what we can do. Alexa, turn on smart power strip
2:57
That didn't work. Let's try again. Alexa, turn on smart power strip
3:03
There we go. So, everything turned on, the phone is charging and everything
3:07
but now I can control things individually too. So, Alexa, turn off switch one
3:15
Okay. Alexa, turn off USB plug. Now it's stopped charging. We can get that back by doing the opposite
3:27
Alexa, turn on USB plug. There we go. So, suffice to say, super handy
3:38
It's really nice because you can rename things super easily in the app
3:42
for either Alexa or the Smart Life app. My Amazon Echo keeps responding every time I say that word
3:50
So, I'm a little surprised we haven't heard a little voice off camera saying
3:54
what do you mean? I don't understand that. Today is Thursday, whatever the heck, right
3:58
So, needless to say, you can rename things. So, if you plug in a floor lamp, you can call it floor lamp
4:05
If you plug in your desk lamp or you plug in your computer
4:09
you can give them meaningful names, just as I've done with USB plug
4:13
because actually by default, this is known confusingly as switch seven, but I just renamed it so I have a little better control
4:21
and it makes a little more sense to me. Now, in the Amazon app, you can create groups
4:27
you can create trigger events and skills. There's a lot of cool stuff you can do
4:31
So, I could have it where if it's after 5 p.m., this one automatically turns on and this one automatically turns off, whatever
4:40
So, Alexa, turn on switch one. Yeah, just get all the lights, get this maximally festive
4:48
So, it's actually a pretty simple device and I will also point out that there are teeny tiny little LED indicators
4:55
that give you an on-off status for the different switches or different outlets
5:02
and that's really handy too. It took me a while to even notice that was the case
5:06
and while we're talking about stuff, I also want to say that it was a little tricky to set up
5:11
because I already have Smart Home things in the Smart Life app
5:15
So, I hooked this up, it worked perfectly well, but I also already had the skill enabled for Amazon
5:23
and when I went there, it just saw this as a single monolithic unit called Smart Power Strip
5:29
That didn't work. I had to disable the skill and re-enable the skill
5:34
and then finally it saw all the different outlets as separate devices
5:38
and then of course I had to go through the whole back and forth loop in the Amazon app
5:43
saying enable switch one, yes. Enable switch two, yes. Enable switch three
5:48
So, a little bit of puttering back and forth, but got it all to work
5:52
Just took a couple of minutes and if you're coming at this without actually having anything with the Smart Life app
5:57
then this can be a whole lot easier to work with. So, I might just be a slightly atypical case
6:02
because I already have so many smart devices in this house. So, okay
6:07
That's really all I have to say. This works really well. It's very nice
6:11
It's well designed and I think that my son is actually going to use this in his apartment
6:16
where he can just assign different names to different things and it's super easy and it's self-contained
6:21
and you can turn everything on and off with one button push or with one command
6:26
Alexa, turn on smart power strip and everything turns on. How easy is that
6:34
Now, before I tell you the price and I think when you think about how much it would cost to get four smart outlets
6:40
this is a no-brainer, right? But before we get there, let me ask if you, you can subscribe to my channel
6:46
Really appreciate when you do that. Thank you. Now, this also comes with a two-year warranty
6:51
Let me say that. That's pretty nice. This is the Tekken smart power strip
6:56
with four AC outlets and four USB charging ports and it will cost you $27.99 at Amazon.com
7:05
That is a no-brainer even without the USB. If it just had the four AC outlets, that would be a really great price
7:11
But having it all self-contained like this, having it designed where you don't even need Wi-Fi
7:17
to actually have it be at least basically functional, pretty cool actually
7:22
It's a very nice design, very nice device and I encourage you, if you want to move into a smart home
7:28
to check this out. And by the way, if you have Wi-Fi, that's all you need
7:32
You don't need a control hub. You don't need anything like that. This just took straight into my Wi-Fi
7:37
and boom, as you saw, it works great. So with that, I will hope to catch you in my next video
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