Summary
- The TP-Link Tapo P210M is a Matter-compatible smart outlet for the same price or less than many competing products that lack support for Matter.
- Installation is easy and requires only scanning a QR code in your chosen smart home app.
- Matter compatibility offers a degree of future-proofing, but some features still require the Tapo app.
TP-Link’s Tapo P210M is one of the few outlets with Matter support, and it’s still one of the most affordable! Yet despite its smarts, the Tapo app is still required for certain features.
TP-Link Tapo P210M
$25 $30 Save
$5
The TP-Link Tapo P210M smart outlet takes the features of a Tapo smart plug and integrates it directly into a power outlet. This is also one of the first smart outlets to come with Matter compatibility, enabling it to work with just about any smart home ecosystem.
- Easy installation
- Matter compatibility
- Comprehensive set of features
- Clean design
- Requires Tapo app for certain features
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Pricing and Availability
The Tapo P210M smart outlet retails for $29.99 and is available through Amazon. As a wall outlet, it comes in only a single color. You’ll never guess which one.
An Easier Installation Than You Might Think
Replacing a power outlet is not nearly as difficult as I expected. The Tapo P210M comes with straightforward instructions, and TP-Link has provided a short YouTube video that I turned to for guidance.
In short, after cutting power at the breaker and verifying that the current is off, you have three wires to connect to the back of the unit: the live wire, the neutral wire, and the ground wire. In newer homes, these three wires are likely color-coordinated. When I took my existing outlet out of the wall, the wires were connected in the same three places that they needed to go on my new smart outlet.
A Deliberately Subdued Design
A smart outlet has a clean look that fits seamlessly alongside the standard outlets in your home. You’ll know it’s different if you look for it, but this is not the sort of difference that immediately catches your eye, and I say this as someone who gets particularly anal about such things.
The outlet has two buttons between the receptacles, so they stick out as much as the GCFI receptacles you find in kitchens and bathrooms. Pressing either button kills power to the adjacent receptacle. There’s a green light that turns on and off as a way of knowing whether the outlet is on from a glance.
Unlike your standard plastic frame, the one around TP-Link’s outlet is not held in place by a screw. You instead pop it off using a flat-head screwdriver, which you insert and use as a lever at the bottom. I’ve popped it off several times without issue, though I’ve been afraid of it cracking each time.
Matter Makes Setup So Much Simpler
This smart outlet comes with Matter integration. That is a big part of what separates it from competing smart outlets and what makes this particular model appealing to me. To add the outlet to your smart ecosystem, all you have to do is scan a QR code using your smart home app of choice.
I’m using Samsung SmartThings. After scanning the included Matter QR code, the app prompts me to give each receptacle a name. I initially started to call the device an outlet, until I realized it was better to put the devices that I intended to plug into each receptacle. I have a night light plugged into the top receptacle and an air purifier plugged into the bottom. This means that inside my SmartThings app, instead of seeing a single entry for my smart outlet, the night light and the air purifier appear as two separate smart devices.
For full functionality, you still need to create a TP-Link Tapo account inside the mobile app available for both Android and iPhone. Since I have a Tapo smart bulb, I’ve already created one. When I opened the app, it automatically detected the new Tapo device in my home and asked if I wanted to add it. I then had to repeat the same steps of creating new devices and assigning them to a room, just like I did in Samsung SmartThings.
Unfortunately, this duplication remains a fact of life for smart home gadgets. Sometimes it’s an issue of waiting for the Matter protocol to support a function. Other times, it’s waiting for vendors to add that support to their products’ implementation of Matter, rather than making futures exclusive to their individual apps.
What Makes an Outlet Smart?
I can perform much of the outlet’s functions via Samsung SmartThings, such as turning the power on and off for each individual receptacle. I can also set timers, like turning off a lamp an hour and a half after I get into bed. I can even schedule tasks, so that said lamp might come on automatically at night and turn off in the morning, with times varying based on the day of the week.
For my two chosen devices, none of this is useful. My air purifier is designed to run 24/7, so I don’t gain anything from the ability to turn it off remotely. Likewise, I use a 4-in-1 GE night light with battery backup. If I turn off the receptacle, the night light stays on.
Still, I can easily see this outlet being useful with a conventional night light. Similarly, this is a way to make any floor or table lamp a remotely accessible smart light. I could also see this outlet being helpful if you were trying to power a fan that’s aimed at you from the other side of the room.
SmartThings integration means I can use Bixby’s voice commands to perform these two functions. If you’re using Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, or Google Home, you can use other voice assistants instead. Support varies.
The feature that appeals most to me requires opening the Tapo app: energy monitoring. Thanks to this smart outlet, I now have a good idea of how much energy my air purifier uses. As a relatively recent investment that’s always on, that’s information I’ve been very curious about. I have only one plugged into a smart outlet right now, but I have three of the exact same unit in different rooms all running at the same speed setting.
According to the smart outlet, they use around 7 watts an hour. This means that all together, the four air purifiers collectively use around 2/3 of a kilowatt per day. As for the night light, it uses less than one watt per hour. I’m happy to see this, since I’ve placed many of these lights all throughout my house as a backup source of light if the power ever goes out.
The smart outlet can also limit how much power a device uses, disabling the receptacle if it tries to pull 1500W when you’ve set the max to 1200W. Then there’s the anti-overcharging feature that cuts power to your phone once it’s fully charged. This can help you protect your phone’s battery if your phone doesn’t yet have battery protection features baked in. Such features are common in Apple and Samsung phones, but they are not yet universal among smartphones.
Tapo also includes an away mode, so you can tell devices to behave in a way that makes it look like you’re still home while traveling.
Should You Buy the Tapo Smart Outlet?
The Tapo P210M smart outlet is a cleaner-looking solution than the existing smart plugs that TP-Link and other companies already offer, but it is also a more labor-intensive option. Buying a smart plug does not require any manual labor or electrical skills, but they do add more bulk.
Ultimately, the features are nearly identical, so which you buy comes down to your preference for looks, your comfort with DIY, and your budget—especially if you’re opting to hire an electrician. For one or two units, the price difference isn’t that great, but smart plugs are the substantially cheaper route to go if you’re trying to convert many appliances at once.
As for competing outlets, most cost around the same, but few come with Matter. That means they work with fewer smart home ecosystems and are typically dependent on cloud servers. The Eve Energy Outlet is a comparable option with Matter and also Thread, but comes with a higher $50 price. Yet unlike TP-Link’s outlet, you don’t need a cloud server for any of its features.
This all makes the Tapo P210M an easy recommendation. Matter support means it will work with any of the major ecosystems and makes this device relatively future-proof for at least some of the core features. Yet if the price were no concern, I’d consider Eve’s outlet and do without the cloud entirely.
TP-Link Tapo P210M
$25 $30 Save
$5
The TP-Link Tapo P210M smart outlet takes the features of a Tapo smart plug and integrates it directly into a power outlet. This is also one of the first smart outlets to come with Matter compatibility, enabling it to work with just about any smart home ecosystem.
