Review: Meross Smart Power Strip and Plug Offer Affordable and Versatile HomeKit Sockets, but Setup Difficulties Can Cause Frustration

[JAS2]

1: size: the single socket plug is larger than the one from Eve Home as far as the EU version goes.

2: Eve Home version is solely on Bluetooth with its range limits

3: Setup is indeed a pain in a... but it eventually worked with mine after up to 10 times starting over and over again the regular Home App setup. That has been true with all versions I have, single and double plug indoor as well as double plug outdoor v1.

 

[FHoff]

Setup difficulty talked about in the article is enough for me to stay clear of these.
Some of these HomeKit accessories make things way too complicated.

 

[GiantKiwi]

Was using these for a little while, until I discovered they were attempting to saturate my IoT VLAN with ARP traffic. Straight in the bin at that point. Incidentally, why I have an IoT specific VLAN in the first place, but unacceptable all the same.

 

[hinesmj]

I have a ton of Meross stuff. Light bulbs, outlets, garage door opener, switches. All have been really easy to set up and the fact that they show in HomeKit and work w Alexa make them perfect for my use case.

 

[hinesmj]

Was using these for a little while, until I discovered they were attempting to saturate my IoT VLAN with ARP traffic. Straight in the bin at that point. Incidentally, why I have an IoT specific VLAN in the first place, but unacceptable all the same.

What does this mean? I have a bunch of Meross stuff and have never had an issue.

 

[Wizec]

Thought I would chime in here as I recently started using meross products after "discovering" them on Amazon.

We decided to get our first smart plug for our outdoor Christmas lights and in searching/looking on Amazon I saw this brand, saw they were very affordable, and Homekit compatible so I bought a pair.

I did have issues with them connecting to Homekit unfortunately and after searching the internet for a solution I found a post by someone that helped out a ton. In order to get the device to connect without issue, I needed to have my phone AND Homekit Hub (In my case an apple TV) BOTH on my 2.4 Ghz network. Once I did this, the plugs connected to Homekit without issue. I knew my phone needed to be on 2.4 Ghz as the instructions mentions that, but also having my hub on the same band was key. They clearly need to document this better, but in the end they did connect to my network just fine.

Since getting the plugs, I was so happy with them I have went on to replace several of our wall switches with meross smart switches. We have a few lights in the house I wanted to make "smart" but I didn't want to spend a lot of money to do so. Our other switches in the house are Lutron Caseta and while they are excellent, they are expensive. Their dimmer switch is $50+ where as a meross smart switch is under $20. I now have 1 meross smart switch and 2 3 way smart switches from them.

One nice thing I will add about their 3 way switch is that it works with the other switch being a normal mechanical switch. Most other smart switches that are 3 way seem to require you to replace both switches, or make one switch become basically a "remote" to the first switch. The meross switch wires exactly like a regular 3 way switch. (It needs a neutral wire, of course.)

Anyway I have found them to be good, affordable homekit products.

Now that the Meross switches are connected to the network, are you able to let your other devices connect back on 5Ghz and they all work together?

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I do not understand the use case of a HomeKit power strip. I get maybe having a lamp you want to turn on on a schedule. Can someone explain to me the use case here. How would this improve someone life, why would they want/need this?

If you need it, you need it. If you don't, you don't ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[GiantKiwi]

What does this mean? I have a bunch of Meross stuff and have never had an issue.

ARP or Address Resolution Protocol is what is used to assign IP's to MAC addresses on a network. Excessive ARP traffic can cause a failure of the primary function of the protocol, in this particular case, it knocked about half of the IoT devices on the VLAN to a disconnected status quite frequently, causing me to look into what was causing my Philips Hue to stop talking to Home app.

 

[jimthing]

Setup difficulty talked about in the article is enough for me to stay clear of these.
Some of these HomeKit accessories make things way too complicated.

I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one having trouble setting this thing up. Still haven’t because I resent having to dumb down wifi to use it.

Now that the Meross switches are connected to the network, are you able to let your other devices connect back on 5Ghz and they all work together?

As has been said, these are NOT complicated at all to setup.

1. Login to router, (often web interface) temporarily deselect "5GHz" network.
2. Add all devices to your Home & Meross apps.
3. Login to router again, REselect "5GHz" network.
(4. Check Meross app for updates; install them.)
Done.

This is the case with almost all IoT devices, so is not something peculiar to Meross ones.
(I've attached my PDF of instructions and outer box. If anyone wants to read it! ;-)

What amazes me is that customers (like you) are willing to justify this.
It's 2020 FFS! I expect a product to ship working with normal WiFi setups (including 5GHz, mesh, wide channels, channel hopping, etc) not to have to engage in contortions to deal with their unwillingness to match the spec.

No one is 'justifying' anything, merely explaining how most iOT things (inc. these this Meross ones) all connect via 2.4GHz on initial setup, then one can re-enable your 5GHz network afterwards. Sure, in future this may change to include 5GHz for initial setup, but it's not a massive problem.

The main problem with these over the much better EVE ones (albeit 3 times the price) is that they have a very low Amp limit. If you have a large fan, these keep varying the voltage so that it powers up, down, slowing down, speeding up and then just powering off.

No problem with the much better EVE ones.

13A is UK standard maximum for most small devices. If that's what you mean...?
How is voltage varied by amperage; never heard of such a thing.

If you need it, you need it. If you don't, you don't ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They're good for "scenes". Eg. You get home from work, say to Siri "Set evening scene" (or whatever you choose to name it), then certain lights turn on, heating thermo sets to ideal temp you like, TV turns on, etc.

It's basically easier than turning these all individually how you like them each time. ;-)

 

[FHoff]

I’ve never had to log into my router to connect a HomeKit device. So I see no need to start now. I’ll still pass on these.

 

[jimthing]

I’ve never had to log into my router to connect a HomeKit device. So I see no need to start now. I’ll still pass on these.

Sure thing, but these are very well priced at ~£11 each (buying the £44 4-pack), so given most other HomeKit smart plugs were 2 to 4 times the price, most won't see it as a problem for the 5mins extra it takes.

Once setup they all work the same using Home app.

 

[hinesmj]

ARP or Address Resolution Protocol is what is used to assign IP's to MAC addresses on a network. Excessive ARP traffic can cause a failure of the primary function of the protocol, in this particular case, it knocked about half of the IoT devices on the VLAN to a disconnected status quite frequently, causing me to look into what was causing my Philips Hue to stop talking to Home app.

Thanks - Never knew that. I haven't had any issues with them.

 

[ColdCase]

This is the case with almost all IoT devices, so is not something peculiar to Meross ones.
(I've attached my PDF of instructions and outer box. If anyone wants to read it! ;-)


No one is 'justifying' anything, merely explaining how most iOT things (inc. these this Meross ones) all connect via 2.4GHz on initial setup, then one can re-enable your 5GHz network afterwards. Sure, in future this may change to include 5GHz for initial setup, but it's not a massive problem.

I have a separate SSID and 2GHz AP radios for IoT devices. I have set up dozens of IoT devices over the years and have never had the issues I've had with Meross. Even the WEMO smart plug setup was a breeze in comparison. There is something fundamentally wrong with the Meross wifi/net firmware implementation. Futzing around with router configurations is unacceptable in this day and age. I get no response from Meross support.

When setting the plugs up via Meross's app to use without homekit integration, the three smart plugs continually drop connection. The Meross plugs are in close proximity with a couple WEMO plugs. The WEMOS are showing a solid -64dB signal connection with solid quality. The Meross crap is showing a solid -52 dB connection but with tons of erratic quality issues that come and go. Looks like another one lost its wifi connection, it should be back within 5 minutes. These are the only IoT devices with issues. Perhaps they are calling home to send my network data and files and are getting frustrated

 

[Beerstalker]

I've now bought eight of the smart plug mini after seeing this article.

I've only got 5 of them set up at this time, but never had an issue with adding any of them. They have all been working flawlessly since I got them.

I am interested in the smart strips, but I won't buy them with that plug. They need to release new models in the US with a 90° plug like the one shown in the articles pictures. I hate plugs that stick straight out from the wall like the ones they have now. I'm not sure why they did that, unless the conflicting orientations of the ground plug made it hard for them to decide which way to make it? My home still has the ground plug at the bottom, like pretty much anyone else I know, but I keep hearing that the new standard is for the ground to be at the top.

 

[ColdCase]

Solved it..... I used the Meross app to update the MSS110 plug firmware from 4.1.11 to 4.1.14. Then restarted the iPhone and plugs. On the first try, after a minute, it failed for an unknown reason. On second try after 30-40 seconds it mentioned that the plug cannot connect to the internet and do I want to use cell data. I said no, and waited a minute. I happened to notice in the iPhone wifi settings that there was now a hot spot in the vicinity that the phone remembered. So I turned the hot spot off, reset and HomeKit now added the accessory just fine, as I would expect. Seems to be working now. So it required updated firmware and then took three tries. The hot spot may have been confusing the setup, as the third plug was successfully added on the first try after its firmware was updated.

So the catch, for me, was that only the Meross app can check and update firmware, but the plugs can't be added to the Meross app until they are first added to HomeKit. But adding to HomeKit fails. The add to HomeKit process moves along enough that the Meross app can see the plugs and check/update firmware. After which adding the plugs to HomeKit is successful.

The plugs may have been trying to call home and get the latest firmware, but after 3 days they were not successful. This may be why some report that after waiting days the plugs magically were able to be added.

Regardless, it shouldn't be this hard.

 

[hagjohn]

Solved it..... I used the Meross app to update the MSS110 plug firmware from 4.1.11 to 4.1.14. Then restarted the iPhone and plugs. On the first try, after a minute, it failed for an unknown reason. On second try after 30-40 seconds it mentioned that the plug cannot connect to the internet and do I want to use cell data. I said no, and waited a minute. I happened to notice in the iPhone wifi settings that there was now a hot spot in the vicinity that the phone remembered. So I turned the hot spot off, reset and HomeKit now added the accessory just fine, as I would expect. Seems to be working now. So it required updated firmware and then took three tries. The hot spot may have been confusing the setup, as the third plug was successfully added on the first try after its firmware was updated.

So the catch, for me, was that only the Meross app can check and update firmware, but the plugs can't be added to the Meross app until they are first added to HomeKit. But adding to HomeKit fails. The add to HomeKit process moves along enough that the Meross app can see the plugs and check/update firmware. After which adding the plugs to HomeKit is successful.

The plugs may have been trying to call home and get the latest firmware, but after 3 days they were not successful. This may be why some report that after waiting days the plugs magically were able to be added.

Regardless, it shouldn't be this hard.

All I had to do is add scan them with my iPad camera (since my 12 camera could not focus on the small QR code) and that added them to Home app. Then I went to Mercoss app, signed into it and it recognized that I had added items to the network and I was able to add them to the Mercoss app. Then I was able to upgrade the firmware.

Is you phone on the same SSID as the devices? Maybe that is the issue.

 

[nmeed]

I have one of these smart plugs and keep getting an "an unexpected error occurred" from the automation. Anyone have any idea why that is? I can open the home app and turn it on/off like a dream. But for some reason the automation always always gives me an unexpected error occurred. For those wondering, it's to turn off the plug when the battery % rises above 80. When I test it in the automation itself, it works fine. But something about the automation aspect that makes it not work.

 

[ColdCase]

Yes on the same SSID, I have only one 2.4GHz SSID. And I was scanning the QR code. I followed the Meross troubleshooting instructions as below, and I have yet to hear back from Meross support.

HomeKit would not add MSS110 plugs running firmware 4.1.11. Plugs running firmware 4.1.14 are added seamlessly by QR code scan. On my simple home network, plugs with firmware 4.1.11 seem to be failing to update to the current version on their own.

Failure to connect with HomeKit seems to be a widespread and common problem for Meross things and the source of frustration. Many don't seem to have an issue, but in my case I think it may have to do with recent updates in the iOS and Meross apps (including that HomeKit must adopt them before the Meross app can discover them). I've seen a lot more frustration posts recently than months ago.

Please follow the below points to troubleshoot:
1. Please make sure your iPhone is running iOS 13.0 or higher.
2. Ensure that your iPhone is connecting to the 2.4GHz network of your home Wi-Fi.
3. Reset the HomeKit device and kill the Apple Home app and retry.
4. Restart your iOS and retry. (This is important.)
5. Have your iPhone to forget all other Wi-Fi in your home and retry.
6. For more detailed setup troubleshooting, please refer to here to have step by step instructions.
If the above points do not help, please email your device name, device MAC address, or SN to support@meross.com, we will help solve the issue timely.

 

[travoose]

A little off topic, but does anyone have any of the MeRoss garage door openers that connect to HomeKit? Wondering what your experience was with them.

 

[Beerstalker]

I bought the Meross smart garage door opener off Amazon back in October 2020, and probably installed it later that month or maybe in early November. I have been extremely happy with it. I am happy to answer questions about it, but we should maybe take it to another thread or something to avoid taking this one too far off topic.

Having such good luck with the Meross smart garage door opener is part of the reason why I gave these smart plugs a chance.

 

[doloresbrignolo]

Hey, thank you for sharing your product with us here. I heard a lot of good about these meros smart power strips. It is a good device if you got electric devices from other countries, but this power strip is uncomfortable to carry in long trips, so I prefer taking it with me on long trips with the smart plug. Usually, I visit many countries per trip, so it is important to keep all my devices alive. With the smart plug I bought on amazon, I have no problem charging my devices in other countries with different sockets.