D-Link arrives in force at the home automation party
Ashort while ago, I covered some Belkin smart devices, and I’m now lucky enough to have received some D-Link ones to make a comparison.
The DSP-W215 is exactly the sort of thing that most people think about when the phrase ‘home automation’ is used, as it’s the simplest level of control that you can extend to any of your appliances.
Looking a little like many of the smaller Powerline adapters, the Smart Plug is designed to be placed between the wall socket and the device you’d like to remotely control. Once powered, you can connect the box to your wi-fi, which provides a means to link it to the internet and a mydlink account. That last bit is critical, because without that centralised control, you’d only be able to turn power on and off locally, whereas with this gizmo you can do it from any internet connected point on the globe.
But that's probably the least impressive thing you can do, because like the Belkin equivalent, you can use the smartphone application to control it and even connect when it operates to other D-Link devices.
As a fringe benefit, you can also monitor how much power is flowing through it and the operating temperature, which could be useful if you’re concerned about a potentially problematic appliance drawing high power while you’re away.
Another nice touch is that should someone decide to push the button on the Smart Plug to power it off, you’re made aware on your phone or tablet that they’ve overridden the control locally.
The only problem I encountered was that for some curious reason, I had difficultly setting it up with my Motorola phone, though my Nexus 10 tablet worked immediately. Other than that, it works pretty much as D-Link promotes.
The installation sequence is cleverly streamlined by the smartphone app being able to read QR codes that the device and its paperwork have, which uniquely identify it for linking. Perhaps a NFC tag might have been even slicker, but the chosen solution works with every phone or tablet with a working camera.
One obvious improvement would be that from the eu.mydlink.com website, you should be able to have the same control as the smartphone app offers, other than just showing you what devices you have installed.
As I see it, there are two problems with this device that undermine it a little. The first is undoubtedly the price, which is just too high when compared with a simple power timer. This might do so much more, but remote lighting control is what many people will use it for. And the other is that to truly get the full benefit of this, you need some other D-Link devices, like its motion sensor, so you can build a more sophisticated response to activity around your home.
I like what D-Link has done; I’m just concerned that at this price people just won’t buy into it as readily as they might have done if it were cheaper. Mark Pickavance
An expensive remote control power socket.