Review: Meross Smart Power Strip
Frequent readers of this blog will know that I’ve got a rather modest Apple HomeKit setup to give me some smart home capabilities. I don’t have a lot of HomeKit gear and my setup isn’t very complex. But it meets my needs just fine. One thing that I needed to do is clean up the area around where my wife and I store our bikes because we have a HomeKit compatible plug to control a light there, plus we have a charger to charge my road bike’s electronic shifting system. Thus I decided to get one HomeKit compatible item to rule them all so to speak:
This is the Merooss Smart Power Strip. This specific one has four AC outlets that are individually controlled from HomeKit, plus four 5V USB-A plugs for charging which are controlled from HomeKit as a single block. It operates on 2.4 Ghz WiFi and also is compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, & Samsung SmartThings. But since I am a HomeKit user, I set it up with HomeKit. And it is a very good touch that you don’t need the Meross app to set it up in HomeKit. Simply scan the HomeKit code at the bottom of the power strip and off you go. Having said that, Meross says that you need their app to do firmware updates on the device. So I installed it and checked the firmware and found that it was up to date. I also found this:
The app asks for a ton of permissions. Including asking for your exact longitude and latitude. Call me paranoid, but it seems to me that asking for exact longitude and latitude is a bit over the top in terms of asking for your location. So I removed the power strip from the app, which then required me to set it up in HomeKit again as removing it resets the device. I then deleted the app from my phone. That way it has no relationship with the Meross app beyond what I did to check for new firmware.
As I mentioned earlier, the power strip has four AC outlets that are individually controlled from HomeKit, plus four 5V USB-A plugs for charging which are controlled from HomeKit as a single block. That way you can add them to scenes and set automations for them individually. Plus each of these has a green light to indicate that they are on (you can disable them, but you need their app to do that), along with a master power switch to turn the entire strip off. But one interesting omission is a manual control for any of the outlets or the block of USB-A ports. Which means that this is 100% app controlled. That’s a shame as it is handy to be able to walk up and press a button to turn something on or off without using your phone.
The Meross Smart Power Strip was $50 CDN at Amazon. It works well within the HomeKit ecosystem and as long as you avoid using their app, I would have no problem suggesting that you take a look at it if you need a smart power strip of some sort in your home.
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