The Meross Outside Dimmer Plug provides you extra management over your lights than an everyday sensible plug can. Nonetheless, whereas you should use it indoors or open air, it is tailor-made extra for outdoor use.
Good plugs are nice equipment to personal as a result of they will management almost something in your own home out of your gadget. From lamps to bug zappers, you may flip any “dumb” equipment into a sensible one.
The issue is all they will do is flip your home equipment on and off. Whereas this can be sufficient for many objects, others could have further options you need to management — like dimmable lights.
The Meross Outside Dimmer Plug provides deep management of your home equipment at a budget-friendly value. It is a good way to handle your outside surroundings with an automation out of your cellphone.
Meross Outside Dimmer Plug — An atypical design
The Meross Outside Dimmer Plug is designed like different outside plugs. It is comprised of polycarbonate hearth retardant materials and is FCC (Federal Communications Fee) licensed.
Measuring 2.36 x 3.15 x 1.58 inches, it is sufficiently small to be tucked into corners or hidden below a desk. There’s additionally a tiny hook on the again to mount the plug if you do not need it on the bottom.
The plug is rated IP44 dust-resistant and splash-resistant. Nonetheless, it is best to maintain the Outside Dimmer Plug out of water and in a dry location.
The Outside Dimmer Plug has a singular outlet, so you may solely plug in a single equipment at a time. Related to it’s a severely quick cable, which requires you to have already got your equipment stationed close to an current outlet.
On prime of the Outside Dimmer Plug is a button that may management the facility and brightness of your lights when it is disconnected out of your iPhone. A lightweight surrounding the button will point out if the plug has energy and is in setup mode.
When the plug will not be in use, a canopy might be positioned over the outlet for optimum safety. On the flip facet, when the plug is in use, the quilt hangs off the facet of the plug till it is wanted once more.
Meross Outside Dimmer Plug — Connection and compatibility
The Meross Outside Dimmer Plug permits you to management your lights and home equipment from any gadget. However you need to correctly arrange the plug earlier than you are able to do that.
To begin the setup course of, the ring across the button have to be blinking to point it is able to pair.
To attach the plug to WiFi, you must have a 2.4GHz community obtainable. A 5GHz community is incompatible.
Whereas the Outside Dimming Plug can management the facility of any linked gadget, it could additionally change the brightness ranges of plugged-in dimmable lightbulbs. Even when the bulb’s screwed into an atypical lamp, the dimness can nonetheless be altered.
LED and CFL bulbs are appropriate with the plug by outputting a most of 150W. INC bulbs are additionally appropriate and might have a most output of 400W.
If you happen to aren’t utilizing the plug for lighting, then observe it is not appropriate with pumps, pool filters, and motors.
When controlling the dimness of your lights, you may set them to a degree between 1% to 100%. In case you are utilizing the button, it may be set to 10%, 20%, 30%, 50%, or 100% brightnesses.
Whilst you can management the Outside Dimming Plug from anyplace you might have an web connection, you’ll obtain sooner response occasions if you’re in the identical location.
Meross Outside Dimmer Plug — Controlling out of your cellphone
The Meross Outside Dimmer Plug might be managed from the Dwelling or Meross app. Nonetheless, the Meross app provides extra performance than the Dwelling app does.
When first connecting the Outside Dimmer Plug to the Dwelling app, it can acknowledge it as a light-weight, not a plug. But, you may change the gadget’s icon after you full the setup course of.
Altering the brightness ranges is simple — all you do is faucet on the plug within the Dwelling app and lift or decrease the toggle. Nonetheless, if the plugged-in lights change colours, you can not change them from the plug itself.
Similar to with different HomeKit equipment, you may group the Outside Dimming Plug with different plugs and lights inside the app. Since you may solely plug in a single equipment, this turns into a helpful function if you are going to buy a number of plugs and need to management them concurrently.
By grouping the plug with dimmable lights, you may alter their dimness degree concurrently. However, if you happen to hyperlink it to a non-dimmable gadget, you will must entry the group settings and modify the plug’s degree individually.
When you have current automations, you may embrace the Outside Dimmer Plug or create a brand new one based mostly on it. You possibly can select when the plug will activate or off and set the brightness degree.
Whereas the Dwelling app can management the principle capabilities of the Outside Dimmer Plug, the Meross app gives further options the Dwelling app doesn’t.
One helpful function of the app is checking the compatibility between the plug and the sunshine you plugged in. It lets you examine the steadiness of the sunshine and what degree to set the brightness at if it begins flickering.
The Meross app will even provide updates to the plug when obtainable.
In the end, regardless of which app you utilize, you may simply management the Outside Dimming Plug’s core performance at your fingertips.
Meross Outside Dimmer Plug — Outside management at your fingertips
The Meross Outside Dimmer Plug is an excellent addition to your outside lights, permitting you to manage their energy and dimness out of your cellphone.
Establishing the Outside Dimmer Plug was easy, and the response time to instructions was fast. Though the bulb’s brightness degree did not change immediately when invoked, it nonetheless solely took two seconds to finish.
The Outside Dimming Plug is nice for individuals who dangle up seasonal vacation lights and need to put them on a number of schedules. It additionally advantages individuals who need to set the temper on their patio by altering their mild’s brightness degree.
The worth is one other spotlight for the Outside Dimming Plug as a result of it retails below $30. Most HomeKit equipment might be costly, however Meross has a repute for promoting budget-friendly HomeKit units, and this plug isn’t any completely different.
Though we had a optimistic expertise with the plug, we imagine it might be helpful if it had an extended cable and extra retailers sooner or later. Whereas it’s doable to make use of an extension cable to resolve this subject, it might be extra handy if the plug had these options built-in.
If you need simpler management over your exterior lights, then the Meross Outside Dimmer Plug is a good possibility to decide on. Nonetheless, if you happen to dwell in an condo or do not use outside lights, we advocate taking a look at a pack of sensible plugs as an alternative.
Meross Outside Dimmer Plug — Execs
- IP44 ranking
- Dimmable accessibility with appropriate lightbulbs
- Price range-friendly value
Meross Outside Dimmer Plug — Cons
- Just one outlet
- Solely obtainable in black
- Quick wire size
Ranking: 4 out of 5
The place to buy the Meross Outside Dimmer Plug
You should purchase the Meross Outside Dimmer Plug from their web site for $28.99. It is obtainable in black.
You too can buy it from Amazon for $30.99. It is also obtainable in black.