Gadgetory

hi I'm Andrew gebhardt for cnet's today I'm taking a look at the monster central power control kit the idea here is pretty simple you plug this into a wall and then you plug any electronic you want in here that allows you to use the monster app to remotely control whatever you plugged in say you have a lamp plugged in here now from the office you can turn on your living room light you can set schedules this thing will also monitor the energy of it for you and it will provide some surge protection to connect to the internet you'll also need to hook this hub directly into your router this will talk to this guy and boom you have a connection so 140 bucks is a lot for this and I mean like a whole lot now maybe that'd be okay if monster invented something brand-new to help you take a first step into the smart home except that there's a million other devices that do the exact same thing as this and cost a lot less d-link idevices quirky I home insteon grid connect all of which offer wider interoperability some of which are going to be home kit compatible and all of them cost way less than 140 bucks so look it's not that this thing doesn't work it's fine it'll flip your light switch on or off but honestly pulling up the app and having to press three buttons to get your light to turn on your sort of gonna miss just going up and flipping the light switch but it offers remote functionality with only a little bit of lag it has energy readings but it's not enough to redeem this thing monsters are well-known brand and maybe they're counting on that and the fact that a lot of people still aren't very familiar with the smart and honestly a smart plug is a great way to get started with home automation but there are better cheaper options out there that offer more interoperability go with any one of those over the and forty dollar monsters central power control for cnet I'm Andrew governor