The Vont Smart Plugs were sent to me to review by Vont, and they retail for twenty dollars on Amazon.com. The plugs received one firmware update during the duration of the testing. The plugs are white and have a button on the left side that allows you to cut the power flow from the plug.
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| Vont Plugs |
What is a Smart Plug?
A smart plug is a plug you plug into a wall. It allows you to turn nonsmart home electric devices into smart devices. You can enable voice control and automatons with a smart speaker and can turn them on and off with a mobile application. Some automatons can also be done in third-party applications such as IFTTT.
Review
These Vont Plugs allow you to connect them to Alexa and Google Assistant and thy integrate with the Vont application and IFTTT. Vont Home is a basic application. You can turn the plug on and off, and turn off the blue LED. This LED tells you if the plug is on or off, but sometimes the LED can be covered up by some electronics. The application also allows you to set routines and a vacation mode. Vacation mode seems to randomly turn the switch on and off. This would be useful if you left the house and wanted to make it look like someone was there.
Sometimes the application would be slow to respond to commands, and I would have to retap. Some features like the timer have some lag with the scrolling numbers. In general, the application is kind of laggy and some features like the schedule do not seem to work. The application shows a blue electrical outlet when it is turned on, and it is not blue when it is turned off. The application uses WiFi and Bluetooth to connect to your phone and to update the software. The software is running firmware version 1.0.37. IFTTT integrates well with the application, there it only takes a bit of time to get the applet working (after creation), but when it starts it works well.
Alexa Integration
I tested the plugs with the Alexa application. I can had to link my Vont account to Amazon again. It detected my Smart Plug, but because I probabally scanned before linking I found the plug twice. I told Alexa to turn the plug on and off. I then renamed the plug in the Alexa application, and I told it to turn off in one minute. There is a toggle on the devices screen, and this allows you to turn the device on and off. Unfortunately, I could not get the routines to work.
Conclusion:
In general, the Vont Home application could be optimized for a better experience, but the core features such as turning it off and on, IFTTT, and the voice assistants work well. The asking price of two for twenty dollars is pretty decent, and it gets the basics correct. However for a more more reliable Smart Plug, I would look elsewhere. Also the marketing images are slightly wrong.
Tech Talk To You Later!!
Read the In-depth Vont Light Review
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