D-Link DSP-W215 WiFi Smart Plug
| Review At A Glance | |
|---|---|
| Product | D-Link DSP-W215 WiFi Smart Plug [product link] |
| Summary | A WiFi Smart Plug to realise your own Smart Home. Aside from controlling your home's electronic devices, it is also an energy monitor. |
| Pros | + Easy to setup + Works as intended |
| Cons | – Does not work with IFTTT - Power button slightly obstructed when using 3-pin power plugs |
| SRP | S$69.00 (at time of post) |
The D-Link DSP-W215 WiFi Smart Plug is a multi-purpose, compact and easy-to-use device that allows you to monitor and control your home’s electronic devices. It is one of the products in D-Link’s Smart Home (Connected Home) concept. In this post, I will be reviewing the D-Link DSP-W215 WiFi Smart Plug and mydlink Home app.
D-Link’s Smart Home Concept
What’s your idea of a smart home or connected home? Electrical appliances connected to the Internet and controllable on your smart phone or through voice (like JARVIS in Iron Man)? Or an intuitive system that turns on the lights as you walk into a room at dust?
D-Link have got some products up their sleeve to realise it – WiFi Smart Plug, WiFi Motion Sensor (DCH-S150) and its range of WiFi Cameras. All these can work together (or independently) to realise a part of your smart home concept. For example, pairing up the motion sensor with the smart plug to on floor lamps and air circulator.
The WiFi Smart Plug
I got the D-Link DSP-W215 meant for Singapore but the box art depicts the Type F Plug meant for countries like Germany, Netherlands, etc. whereby electrical appliances uses two round pins. Box art aside, I am glad the contents are correct.
At the back of the retail box, it suggests that you can:
- Remotely turn on heating and lights to welcome you home,
- Schedule lights or radios to turn on and off as a deterrent while you’re away, and
- Monitor the energy usage of your appliances.
Yes, the D-Link DSP-W215 comes with energy usage monitor.
Package contents
Inside the package, you will find the following:
- D-Link DSP-W215 WiFi Smart Plug
- Quick Install Card
- Quick Installation Guide
- Miscellaneous leaflets
The QR codes on the Quick install card will come in handy. The one on the front directs you to the mydlink Home app while the one at the back facilitates the adding of the D-Link DSP-W215 into the mydlink Home app.
The DSP-W215 WiFi Smart Plug
On the front of the D-Link WiFi Smart Plug is a power on/off button with LED indicator that lights up green when the connected electrical appliance is on. Pressing the power buttons will toggle the power to the connected appliance.
On the side is the WiFi Protected Setup (WPS) buttons that allows you to quickly set up the wireless connection to your WiFi router. If your router does not support WPS, it can still be manually set up. Right beside the WPS button is the Status LED that:
- Glows green when everything is running smoothly,
- Turns solid red when it is powering on,
- Blinks green while performing the WPS setup, and
- Blinks orange when it is not properly connected to your home network.
The three pin prong meant for Singapore electrical socket. The circled blue symbol on the top of the D-Link WiFi Smart Plug is just a print and serves no purpose. Initially I thought it is a touch sensitive button but I was proven wrong. I will cover this in my closing thoughts section.
Setting up the D-Link DSP-W215 WiFi Smart Plug
In order to setup and use the D-Link DSP-W215 WiFi Smart Plug, you need the following:
- The D-Link DSP-W215 itself,
- WiFi network that is connected to the Internet,
- A mydlink account on www.mydlink.com,
- A Smart Phone with the mydlink Home app from Google Play or Apple App Store.
Hooking up the D-Link WiFi Smart Plug to appliance
For this review, I will be hooking up my pink salt floor lamp to the D-Link WiFi Smart Plug. Why? I would like the lamp to on/off every alternate hours during the day and keep it on from evening until morning the next day. And it is also easier to show the response of the D-Link WiFi Smart Plug after I trigger it from the mydlink Home app.
Adding theD-Link WiFi Smart Plug into mydlink Home
After installing the mydlink Home app, launch it and sign in to your mydlink account.
Locate and start the “Add new device” process. You should be prompted with the following.
Scan the QR code on the Quick install card that you took out from the package earlier. This will start a guided process to assist you in setting up the D-Link WiFi Smart Plug to your WiFi network.
In my case, the entire setup process took approximately 5 minutes. I spent another 5 minutes updating the firmware of the WiFi Smart Plug. Hurray, I now have the D-Link DSP-W215 (named “Salt Lamp”) added to My Devices.
Test Running the D-Link WiFi Smart Plug
With the pink salt floor lamp attached to the D-Link WiFi Smart Plug, I flicked the toggle button on the mydlink Home app and the pink salt floor lamp switched on rather instantaneously.
The pink salt floor lamp is running a 40-Watt tungsten bulb and the energy meter seems pretty accurate. It recorded that the pink salt floor lamp is drawing 37.05W. Thermal actually refers to the temperature of the socket attached to your appliance.
I have recorded a video on the switching on/off of connected appliance via the mydlink Home app. I find the slight delay acceptable. What about you?
Other features of dlink Home App
You can create up to 5 schedules for your devices – 2 Basic schedules and 3 Advanced schedules.
The Basic schedule, as the name suggests, is basic and straightforward. You define the days and the time window which the schedule will run. Then you define the on/off cycle period for the device.
The Advanced schedule allows you to create on/off schedules in blocks of 30 minutes. With this, I can create my desired schedule for my pink salt floor lamp – powered on throughout the night and on every other hour during the day.
A quick picture with the Xiaomi Mi Plug
Don’t be fooled by the small Xiaomi Mi Plug package as it does not come with the energy monitor and the sockets do not fit Singapore’s usage.
Closing Thoughts
The experience is generally positive. The D-Link DSP-W215 WiFi Smart Plug is easy to setup and worked well. The ability to create time schedules to power on/off appliance is great. Not to mention the ability to power on/off connected devices remotely via the mydlink Home app. It is particularly useful if you are those who hides the power switches to your TV and entertainment systems in feature walls.
The design of the D-Link DSP-W215 WiFi Smart Plug can be further improved. The power button is slightly obstructed when using the three pin plug.The power plug pictured below has a thinner cord compared to the standard ones. Hence, I was hoping the circled blue print on the top of the D-Link DSP-W215 is touch sensitive and would toggle the power to the appliance.
Lastly, the only way to control the D-Link WiFi Smart Plug is via the mydlink Home app. It does not work with IFTTT service like the Belkin WeMo Smart Plug. Instead of relying on static schedules, the IFTTT allows one to create actions base on configurable trigger events like:
- If the sun sets then switch on floor lamp; or
- If temperature is above 32 degrees then switch on air circulator.
Picture Gallery
