Today I’m taking a look at a serious product from a company with a lighthearted name: Koogeek. The product is the Koogeek Wi-Fi Smart Plug ($34.99 at Amazon, affiliate link), and it’s a HomeKit-compatible smart plug that can be used to control lights or appliances up to 1800W from anywhere.
Design
The Koogeek Wi-Fi Smart Plug uses the common design for a lot of smart plugs — it plugs into an existing wall socket, adding another wall socket that’s controllable via the Koogeek app or Apple’s Home app.
Some of the many smart plugs I’ve tested are just plain ugly, so I was glad to see that the Koogeek plug was actually quite attractive. It’s a roughly square shape, with nice rounded corners. Probably the only negative about the design is that it can block the other outlet in a standard dual-outlet setup (see image below); I was able to plug a regular non-grounded cord into the second outlet but some larger cords might interfere.
There’s a large power on/off button on top of the unit, and the standard HomeKit identifier label is on the bottom of the unit.
Function
One feature of all HomeKit-compatible devices is easy setup, and the Koogeek Wi-Fi Smart Plug is no exception. From the second I opened the box to having the plug under control of the Apple Home app took less than a minute. Setup is dead simple; you just plug in smart plug, open the Home app (or the proprietary Koogeek app) and tap on “add an accessory”, wait for the device to show up, then tap on it. Point the iPhone camera at the HomeKit label on the device, and seconds later it’s on your Wi-Fi network.
The Koogeek Wi-Fi Smart Plug only works on 2.4GHz Wi-Fi networks, so you’ll want to make sure that your Wi-Fi hotspot supports both 2.4 and 5Ghz bands. I found that for some reason, the Koogeek Wi-Fi Smart Plug was not only the fastest smart plug in terms of how quickly it showed up on the Home app discovery list, but it also paired to the network much faster.
The Koogeek Wi-Fi Smart Plug can be used in all of the usual ways that other home automation devices can when controlled from the Home app, and that includes using Siri for control. The Koogeek Home app (free, see gallery below) shares data from the Apple Home app and has a few features that are unique, like pre-set scenes (I’m leaving, I’m home, Good night, Good morning). It’s a rather plain app, however, and I’d recommend just using the Apple Home app unless you need more information from the plug.
The Q Adapt also features Libratone’s signature Hush function, which silences the audio in the headphones with a wave of the hand over the ear cups, eliminating the need to take off the headphones to hear anything external. Q Adapt On-Ear
is also equipped with proximity sensors that shut down the audio and the adjustable noise cancellation when the user removes the headphones
The Q Adapt On-Ear features Bluetooth + 1 wireless, so two users can share music, check out a podcast, or follow a ball game all from a single device. The Q Adapt On-Ear Bluetooth wireless headphones are available in cloudy white or stormy black for $249. They can be pre-ordered now and will ship in mid-November.
