I do love my home automation. I do. So looking for more options is always something on my radar. I was given the opportunity from the TP-Link folks to look over their Kasa Smart Light Strip (KL400, the 430 model allows for 'zones' within the strip for multi coloured) I was intrigued.
It took me a while to think about where I might put this light. I had a Hue installed under our cabinets already what I liked about this model here was that there was no bridge to worry about installing, and it was a fraction of the price for more than double the length.
This strip is 16.6ft long and only costs about $30CDN. (by comparison, at the time the Hue was $100 for 6'8")
With that much length the possibilities were much more open to me, and it came to me that we have a closet that we've always tried to find a light for, there's a plug-in just outside the doorway of it, so we could hide the power cord and then run the light strip around the doorframe on the inside of the closet to give us some illumination.
So, idea approved by my wife, I installed, and it was a snap to do so.
First up, I like to just unpack and make sure things work. Check out my video here:
You plug in the adapter to the wall, and it plugs into the 'switch' of the device, which is then connected to the strip.
Make sure the arrows on the strip line up with the arrow on the switch piece for it to work.
When it's all plugged in for the first time it's going to slowly blink orange and green, meaning that it's ready for 'pairing' mode.
If you haven't created an account, you do it there and you walk through adding a new device. Pretty straightforward it'll find it, then you'll pick which Wifi you'll want it to connect to and give it the password.
Now, what happened for me it needed to turn off my wifi to connect to the strip to tell it to connect to the wifi, but then my phone wouldn't go back to my wifi, so it like paused a long time and had to manually reconnect.
But, once it's done, it's done! And, even better, you could see that Google Home automatically said "hey, some new device is here", so I didn't even need to go through the 'add works with google' features.
From there I went into my Home app and then moved it to the appropriate room.
Now, if you use Google Home like I do, that's all. What I found was weird was that in Google, Day Light is definitely more greeny-yellow than white. But Ghost White was definitely white.
If you're not using the Home app, you can control everything with the Kasa Smart app, and it has some features that Home doesn't have.
What I like about it (similar to Wiz) is how easy it is to have some of the novelty features like "twinkling lights" or "flickering candles" to give a special feel to the light. I don't know how to do that with the Home app.
Cool.
Depending on how you connected, there is the 'switch' that it has that has the on/off button. One click turns it on or off. Double click it and it'll switch between any of the 'presets' you set up in the app. Long press for 5 seconds resets the wifi. Long press for 10 seconds resets everything.
Now, to physically install it in the room. At first it seemed simple, unpeel, stick and bob's your uncle. But because I want to wrap it around you have to be cautious that the angle of bend isn't too steep (and that an LED isn't on the bend). So, as I went around the corners of the door I gave it a wide berth.
Up one side of the inside of the doorframe pointing inwards and then across the top and then down.
All in all I still had about just under a foot left, but you can cut it (just make sure it's turned off) at the contact points and it's safe.
This is an awesome way to get some simple lighting in the right spot. Now, for that you do need to have a plugin nearby. I couldn't just put it anywhere, but you do get a good amount of cable to run, so your options should be good.
And like I said before, this is only $30CDN... and it's 16.6" - that's a great deal for a simple solution.
I just find it weird that Google Home sending a 'white' signal for the colour and it looks very yellow/greeny.
https://www.kasasmart.com/us/products/smart-lighting/product-kl400l5
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