iHome iSP8 SmartPlug review – CNET

The Good The iHome ISP8 SmartPlug works with a slew of leading smart-home platforms, including Amazon Echo and Apple HomeKit. Plus, its base performance is reliable.

The Bad Although its partners are well-chosen, the iHome doesn’t have the depth of integration possibilities (offered by platforms like IFTTT) to satisfy my more experimental sensibilities.

The Bottom Line The iHome matches the performance of most competitors, but can’t quite ascend to the smart plug throne without IFTTT.

When you’re building a smart home, connected in-wall switches are a great way to smarten up your lighting. But in a rental space, you need a lighter-install product: enter the smart plug.

A smart plug can give any pluggable device a brain. And in the case of the $50
iHome
ISP8 SmartPlug, one of the leaders in the market, that brain connects your dumb old lamp to Siri, Alexa, Wink, SmartThings or Nest.

The iHome ISP8 is making a play in a tough market, with impressive competitors like iDevices and Belkin. And although the device is an improvement over the older ISP5 SmartPlug, connecting with new platforms and introducing energy monitoring, the ISP8 doesn’t offer quite enough to surpass the industry leaders.

iHome’s SmartPlug takes a shot at the throne
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The iHome is a solid smart plug that leaves a bad first impression. I set up the device on two Wi-Fi networks, and both times it took at least three attempts to connect successfully. Next, I wanted to integrate the SmartPlug with Amazon Echo — usually a pretty simple process. Instead, I found I had to download another app — Wink — and set up an additional account to bridge my iHome account and the Alexa app. It only took an extra 5 or 10 minutes, which isn’t the end of the world. But you have to keep that extra app on your phone if you want to use Alexa to control iHome.

Other than this speed bump, the iHome performs admirably. It connects seamlessly with HomeKit and Siri as soon as you pair it with the iHome app. And setting up the included remote control takes only a few seconds.