OV9

Want a couple of smart plugs. Don’t have any experience with them.

Want them in a location that is quite far from the router/repeater disc, so ones that are sensitive to a weaker signal would be an advantage.

Any recommendations?

I have a bunch of Refoss smart plugs that I bought for cheaps off Amazon 4 years ago. They work well, report on usage in real time and seem to be ok being a way from our router.

Tapo P110 are reliable.. mesh WiFi though

I've found Meross ones to be the most reliable for us.

IanF wrote: Sat Dec 27, 2025 1:06 pm Tapo P110 are reliable.. mesh WiFi though

Got several of these - no issues.

unzippy wrote: Mon Dec 29, 2025 11:31 am

IanF wrote: Sat Dec 27, 2025 1:06 pm Tapo P110 are reliable.. mesh WiFi though

Got several of these - no issues.

Have ordered a couple of these - thanks guys.

Work great and the energy use info / timer / schedule is very useful too. <thumbs up emoji thing goes here>

I just bought a load of the Govee GU10 smart bulbs for my kitchen. Primarily so that I can dim them and adjust the colour tempearture when I'm filming social media videos. The bulbs are really nice, they're diffused slightly so not as harsh on the eye as the previous bulbs. The colour variety and control is brilliant, it's quite nice to whack them up full blast when doing something like cleaning. The app which comes with them is a bit slow and has some frustrating foibles, e.g. having to connect each bulb individally before grouping them. Annoying going through exactly the same scan/connect/setup wifi/fail/try again/fail etc when there are 14 bulbs to connect via that process. Plus one of them still won't connect ot the WiFi.

Has anyone used Matter to control their home stuff? I'm quickly amassing various apps for different devices, many of which are not Apple Homekit compaitble, and it would be really useful to control them in one place.

i have my christmas lights on smart plugs. i have them labelled for the location in/on the house including two sets on the front of the house

i labelled them:

“Front top lights”
“Front bottom lights”

which always made me smile!

I have smart plugs for our Christmas lights too. They're cheap proprietary ones from Amazon with a remote (got a 5 pack, with two remotes so you can hopefully find one). Hate crawling round behind the tree to turn them off.

The LED smart lights under my kitchen wall units are on a timer to turn on each day at 6am, it's quite nice to wake up to a bit of light in there, especially in the wintertime.

Gavster wrote: Mon Jan 26, 2026 2:06 pm The LED smart lights under my kitchen wall units are on a timer to turn on each day at 6am, it's quite nice to wake up to a bit of light in there, especially in the wintertime.

You should probably try to make it from the kitchen back to your bedroom each night Gav, no matter how comfortable the worktops look.

Are you suggesting that Gav sleeps with his head on a pilau?

mik wrote: Mon Jan 26, 2026 3:19 pm Are you suggesting that Gav sleeps with his head on a pilau?

…and covered in stirfry, i think he was sleep-wokking.

I sleep in the kitchen because it saves a bit of thyme making breakfast in the morning.

Does anyone use Matter to control smart plugs/bulbs etc?

I'm amassing a bunch of different smart plugs/bulbs etc and want to get some more, but I'm gonna end up with three different manufacturers and I don't want to use three apps to control them. Ideally want to be able to run them through one app such as Apple Home so i can put shortcuts on my control centre. It's only basic functions I need, e.g. on/off and timer functions.