Hands on with the TP-Link HS220 Smart WI-Fi Light Switch

My house is almost completely ‘smart’ thanks to gadgets from Amazon, TP-Link and others. One thing that has been slowing my complete adoption is that most of the lights in my house are either halogen track lighting or multi-gang switches.

TP-Link offered to send me their HS220 Smart Wi-Fi Light switch to try out, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to use it anywhere in my house due to the above. In the end I did have a number of possible locations to use it.

So what is it? The HS220 is a replacement light switch box for a single gang switch. It basically allows you to have a smart controllable light switch that is dimmable, Alexa and Google Assistant (and others) compatible and generally a slick dimmer switch.

It does require you to turn the power off (to that outlet) and do some very minor electrical work. It only takes a few minutes to do but if working with wires and electricity isn’t for you, consult an electrician. But it’s really easy to do it yourself with just a screw driver and the included hardware in the kit.

The installation video shows you what you’re in for.

I settled on replacing the light switch in my second bedroom.

It had the old style on/off switch pictured above. Once I took the plate off, I discovered the previous owner had done a lousy job of painting and drywalling the switch box.

As you can see, the switch itself was painted over in place, and there was a lot of excess drywall. The HS220’s box is fairly big and I had to clean out a bunch of the drywall and repack the wiring to make it fit.

One thing that the instructions glossed over is what to do with the green wire – it should be connected to the metal box in the wall (there should be a mounting screw if the box is somewhat modern).

Once you tuck everything back in, screw the box in place and turn the power back on, use the TP-Link Kasa app to configure the switch. It will guide you through connecting to your home wi-fi. Once powered up, the switch will display a red wi-fi icon when it’s not connected to wi-fi and a green one when it is. After a few moments, the wi-fi icon will disappear and be replaced by a round white led icon letting you know everything is online and working. It also is visible in the dark.

Above the switch is the dimmer buttons (up or down dimming) with a row of LEDs above those to indicate the amount of dimming. There is a nice fade up/down (aka ‘gentle off’) on the light when you turn on the switch which is very pleasant and unexpected compared to the harshness of simply on or off. You can configure how the switch behaves, the speed of gentle off and different options depending on the pressure applied to the switch.

You’re also able to adjust the brightness, create a schedule, set a timer and configure other options from within the app.

I paired the switch with some dimmable LED bulbs I already had (from Ikea) but it works with regular bulbs as well (they just don’t dim).

Another benefit of being able to control this switch from my phone is that I’ve also paired it with my Alexa app and can use voice control to turn it on, off or set the power level via Alexa from anywhere in the house or via the app when I’m away. I have combined this with my other smart home devices and created groups that I can ask Alexa to turn on or off when I get home or when going to bed, etc. which allows me to turn off complete rooms or entire floors of my townhouse with one command.

Of course, if your internet goes down, you lose the remote control but the switch will still work the old fashioned way as long as there is power.

I’ve really enjoyed this more permanent smart home accessory and hope TP-Link comes out with a solution that will work with my multi-gang switches as I’d love to ‘switch’ them all out to smarter versions.

The HS220 is available now at Best Buy or on Amazon.