TP Link HS200 wifi smart switch installation with kasa
To turn on and off my outside lights on a schedule I started with a simple GE switch with built in digital timer that you had to set by pushing buttons on the switch itself which wasn't very fun for the initial setup.
The GE switch worked fine for a little while, but every time there was a power outage it would lose it's programming which was very frustrating. That is what got me looking at Wi-Fi smart switches.
After doing some research, I decided to try the TP-Link HS200 Kasa smart light switch to control my outside house lights. Installation was straight forward like a typical switch with some additional steps required to connect it to my home Wi-Fi network and optionally pair the device with Alexa for voice control.
The kasa app is designed very well and let's you schedule multiple on and off times on a 7 day programmable schedule. This has been working great for setting up my outdoor light timing and is easy to adjust when the seasons change and it gets darker earlier and so on.
So I started with the one switch a couple years ago to control a side entry light and then decided to replace the switch controlling my front lights that was nested in a 4 gang switch plate. The wiring there was a little more complicated because the hot wires were daisy chained from switch to switch.
You can learn how to install the HS200 in a multiple switch receptacle by watching the setup tutorial below. It also covers how to connect the HS200 to Alexa.
At the same time I've been slowly losing the battle, and sanity, of teaching my kids to turn their lights off when leaving their bedrooms since they were tall enough to reach them. I've surrendered and replaced their bedroom light switches with the kasa HS200 now as well so I can just shout "Alexa turn off (child name here)'s lights!" and am feeling pretty good about that.
So I am up to 4 of them in my house. The longest one has been operating for about 2 years. They seem pretty reliable. If you are interested in buying one consider purchasing through my affiliate link to help out my site.
I would recommend segmenting smart switches like this onto their own Wi-Fi network with firewall rules restricting access to the rest of your network to be on the safe side. You can learn more about that in my other post securing your IoT devices with Ubiquiti VLANs