Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip review: The perfect way to keep tabs on your power consumption

T3’s Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip review in a sentence: An excellent electrical strip extension that offers much more than lower budget alternatives.

Once, many years ago, I worked for a business that handled fire and flood clean-up operations, which was fascinating. It was also worrying to see just how many fires started through electrical faults. Often, fires had started due to the overloading of electrical sockets. Thankfully, since then, electric power strips have become more commonplace, a lot more affordable and certainly more durable.

This, the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip represents the latest in extension lead convenience and, although it’s not as cheap as something you might find in the middle aisle of a discount supermarket, the extra cost is fully justified. Tapo’s Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip delivers a lot more than just offering plug-and-play convenience, and the bonus is it has Matter certification. This means it’s been tested and approved by the Connectivity Standards Alliance and should work seamlessly with other Matter-certified Tapo appliances.

What’s more, using Tapo’s supplementary app, the Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip can help you with monitoring energy and keeping tabs on electricity costs. Plus, it offers harmonious integration with voice and remote-control technology, which means it’s super convenient. A prime example is being able to schedule it to switch on the power at a certain time, so energy is only being delivered at a specific time. Considering the way energy bills are going, as in upwards, any small saving is certainly worth considering.

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Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip review: Price and availability

The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip, or Tapo P304M to give it the official product code identifier, is available now and can be purchased directly from Tapo online.

Currently, the cost in the UK is £29.99, which is a reduction down from the original RRP of £34.99. Alternatively, the power strip can also be had from Amazon, for the same £29.99 asking price if you’d prefer to go down that route.

Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip review: Is it any good?

The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip is a far cry from everyday basic extension leads. This, as the name suggests, offers another dimension in home power solutions. While there are cheaper alternatives, the 230 Volts AC mains Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip comes bristling with features and functionality, including real-time energy monitoring, surge protection, zero-crossing detection, voice control and benefits from UKCA Safety certification.

Tapo products are generally very good quality and the design and build of the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip is up there with the best of them. It’s nicely finished in white plastic, has dimensions of 260mm by 62.7mm by 31.4mm and features four parallel ports, each of which has its own status indicator. At the cable end, which is a generous 1.5-metres, there are two indicators, one to show the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi connectivity and the other indicates the surge protection.

The power strip works in harmony with Apple Home, Google Home, Amazon Alexa and SmartThings, so it’s a great all-rounder. The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip will power everything and anything, including the likes of smartphones, TVs, home theatre systems, coffee machines, hair dryers, blenders and so on. It also benefits from being able to set up each power port independently, plus there are individual power buttons, thereby allowing for precise control of just how much energy is being used.

Another bonus with the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip is that, thanks to the app and timer options, it’s easy to configure so things come on when you’re not at home. This adds another dimension to home security by being able to switch lights on and off, giving the impression that someone’s home. Very handy.

Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip review: Performance

The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip was a doddle to setup and configure. After I’d unpacked it and plugged the unit into a mains socket, I downloaded the Tapo app from the Apple store and launched it on my iPhone. The app itself is very good and, after selecting the Tapo P304M from the menu, I tapped my way through the various steps. This included adding in my home Wi-Fi connection details and there was also a firmware update that took place over a matter of seconds.

I liked the way the app offered me options for customising the way the plug array was setup, with options for naming the room it was going to be located in, as well as being able to give each plug socket a unique name. I stuck with the default options until I’d decided on a final home for the socket. However, these can always be changed to suit your needs further down the line. Overall, the procedure is as simple and slick as it could be.

Since installing the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip, it has become way easier to keep tabs on my energy usage. On top of my smart meter and the supporting app information from my energy company, keeping tabs on electricity usage has been a doddle. It’s quite accurate too, right down to the hour. However, the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip adds another level of energy monitoring and offers pinpoint data on specific appliances, which is a real bonus.

The Tapo app provides the real brains behind the power strip, with options for powering each socket up and down, getting those real-time energy usage stats, plus there is the ability to set up a power schedule with timer and away options. These are similarly easy to configure. Energy usage can be shown by the day or over the space of a month, which provides a great way of keeping tabs on how much power is being used. Anything particularly energy draining can subsequently be put on a timed schedule, just to prevent it using more power than is needed.

Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip review: Verdict

This is a really great home accessory, especially if you’ve frequently got lots of folks wanting to charge things in quick succession. I’d be happy to get one for each of the rooms in my home and, thanks to the excellent Tapo app, adding and managing extra power strips seems to be about as easy as it gets. The design and build quality are top-notch and configuring everything is a doddle too. Overall, the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip is currently one of the best power strips money can buy.