Alexa and Smart Plugs

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I’ve been planning to add some smart plugs to our home and thought it would be simple. I want to be able to turn some things off and on by schedule and by telling Alexa to turn them off and on as well.

Hope this is the right place for this post.

Seems most run on the 2.4ghz band. I have all our phones, PCs, and printer running on the 5ghz band of our router. Both bands have the same name except the 5G band name ends with -5G appended.

Does using a 2.4ghz plug mean that my Echo device will need to be changed to 2.4? If that is necessary, I assume that means I will need to switch my phone to 2.4 as well when I need to interact with the Echo via the Alexa android app?

I realize that the Kasa smart plugs have their own android app which would allow me to set the schedule but would not help with using the Echo unless I change it to 2.4. Doing that would preclude my using the Echo to interact with my smart TV where I stream video and have no over the air TV access or cable.

Jim

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WSjcgc50 wrote:

Does using a 2.4ghz plug mean that my Echo device will need to be changed to 2.4? If that is necessary, I assume that means I will need to switch my phone to 2.4 as well when I need to interact with the Echo via the Alexa android app?

Nope… the different radio frequencies are irrelevant. Just a slightly different route to the same destination… if it’s all the same network.

Hope this helps…

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WSjcgc50

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Thanks for the reply. I’m going to try it out. It did seem that I was making it harder than it should be but, then again, more and more lately some tech seems harder than it should be.

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If you have any difficulties connecting the plugs to your network or controlling with Alexa switch your phone to the 2.4Ghz band. I’m pretty sure that any installation instructions with the plugs will tell you that everything involved with the plugs needs to be on the 2.4Ghz band.

--Joe

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That’s what I’m trying to avoid. My 5ghz connection is much faster than the 2.4 and I don’t want to run my phone on that. However, if it’s just temporary setting it up that should work though.

This is what I hate about the marketing hype of smart home tech. The promise of this and tech in general is that it is always worse than advertised.

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WSjcgc50 wrote:

My 5ghz connection is much faster than the 2.4

Fractionally… and it doesn’t mean a tin of beans to a binary flip-flop like a ‘smart switch’ that is either on or off.

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I was referring to my smartphone and the 5g vs 2 not the smart plugs. I’ll work it out one way or the other. I want to be able to use Alexa to have it turn something on/off when I tell it to and still be able to use my smartphone and the Alexa app to manage the Echo devices. I still can do all that but I’m not sure if it will do it with the phone on 5 and the Echoes and plugs on 2.4.

I took your earlier comment to mean that I can do that.

No worries, thanks for the input.

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I have Alexa connected to the 2.4ghz band and controlling two smart plugs.  I have all my PC’s and phones on the 5ghz.  Everything works fine.  I think when I was originally setting things up I switched my phone to the 2.4ghz band, but in hindsight that was probably unnecessary.  The Alexa app is routing it’s connection through Amazon.com, not directly to physical Alexa BOT over the 2.4ghz band.  Both bands carry the same data.  It doesn’t matter.  Hope this helps.

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WSjcgc50

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I also have the house completely setup with Alexa devices (1 Alexa & 3 Dots each with a different wake word). Have a bunch of smart plugs and wi-fi enabled light bulbs (some which need to be connected via their own app to Alexa universe) and last but not least I have Alexa controlling my TV via Harmony Remote. I’ve never had to switch my phone away from 5G you just have to make sure all your devices are on the same network. I had a problem when I installed a new router several of my devices switched automatically to our community shared network. I had to put my phone on that network to switch them back.

I love my Alexa!

May the Forces of good computing be with you!

RG

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TechTango

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Funny story.  Dad has google home devices (via my account) and can say “Hey Google turn on the light”.

We have Alexa as our primary voice recognition thing.  I’ve set up both his Kasa switches through an app on my phone.

The other day he said “Hey Google turn on the lights” rather than “light” and all of a sudden the lights in my house turned on.

Note to self, need to separate his switches into a different Kasa profile.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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TechTango

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I thought I would drop back by and say that it worked fine without having to have the phone, Alexa speakers and light switches on the same band of my network. The only wrinkle was one screen in the Kasa app setup which might lead you to believe you needed to be on the same band. When that popped up, I selected the “already connected” option and it completed without an issue.

Thanks

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