Earlier this yr we reported on the rebranding of GE Lighting’s C by GE model by Savant, the premium residence automation firm. The new identify is Cync, and the corporate has began to launch just a few new merchandise beneath this new model identify. We bought to check one of many new Cync merchandise, Cync Outdoor Smart Plug on an actual residence with regular connectivity. It was the right time to check the sort of good residence system. What higher solution to see how an outside good plug works than with our outdoors vacation lighting. Here are the outcomes from our testing.
What is the Cync Outdoor Smart Plug?
Cync Outdoor Smart Plug unboxed
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Cync’s new out of doors good plug is a great plug that works both inside or outdoors your good residence on a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi connection. It has a Max load of 15A 1800W and a Rating 120V 60Hz. Once linked to your own home Wi-Fi, you’ll be able to management any system you plug into the out of doors plug. You will have the ability to flip units on and off or set scenes and schedules from wherever utilizing the Cync app. You may also use your voice in case you have both an Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant enabled system. No hub is required.
The Cync app is obtainable for iOS and Android units. The Cync app will assist you to setup customized schedules and join with different appropriate units, together with the good audio system and shows which might act as your good residence hub if desired.
What makes Cync’s new out of doors good plug distinctive is its skill to offer management for every outlet individually. Many out of doors good plugs we’ve examined to-date include just one outlet. However, Cync’s new Outdoor Smart Plug comes with two retailers as an alternative of 1. For houses that don’t have many out of doors retailers to energy out of doors lighting or units, this new Cync out of doors good plug may help remedy this downside by offering two good plugs for every out of doors outlet.
How to Setup Cync Outdoor Smart Plug
Cync app will stroll you thru the setup course of.
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Setup of the Cync out of doors good plug is very simple. Just comply with the directions within the Cync app or provided Quick Start Guide. We advocate establishing the Cync plug near your Home Wi-Fi router earlier than taking it outdoors. This will be sure to plug will get paired together with your Wi-Fi router and is absolutely operational previous to being plugged outdoors.
A giant problem for a lot of out of doors good units is connectivity. Being outdoors your own home and much out of your Wi-Fi router, you’ll be able to expertise a weak wi-fi connection. It’s all the time good to check the Wi-Fi sign previous to set up of the out of doors system. If weak, you would possibly want a Wi-Fi extender to assist enhance the wi-fi connection.
Once you will have your Cync Outdoor Smart Plug paired with your own home Wi-Fi community, you’ll be able to arrange management for every particular person outlet on the plug. Tip: ensure that the names you utilize to determine every outlet in your Cync Outdoor Smart Plug are straightforward to recollect and never cumbersome to say when utilizing voice instructions with a sensible speaker or show.
Buy Cync Outdoor Smart Plug at Best Buy
Smart Home Integrations – Compatible merchandise with Cync units
Set up integrations with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant in Cync app
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When taking a look at Cync’s product line of good units, it’s relatively massive. It contains not solely good lights and lightweight strips, however switches, cameras, thermostat, sensors and indoor plugs. All these units are managed by the Cync app and voice instructions.
For voice instructions, Cync units work with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant enabled units. You will setup these integrations within the Cync app. As we talked about, ensure that the names you utilize to label every outlet in your Cync Outdoor Smart Plug are straightforward to recollect and never cumbersome to say when utilizing voice instructions. Having lengthy names may cause complicated on your good speaker or show. Our advice is to maintain it easy.
Besides Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant enabled units, Cync Outdoor Smart Plug additionally works with all C by GE merchandise in addition to Savant Home, the customizable good residence platform.
Cost
The Cync Outdoor Smart Plug prices solely $29.99 and is obtainable on Amazon, Best Buy and Walmart. It is simply obtainable in Black.
How did Cync Outdoor Smart Plug carry out throughout testing
For our assessments, we wished to see how the Cync Outdoor Smart Plug would work with our vacation lighting. We tried establishing the Cync Outdoor Smart Plug outdoors first, however it didn’t work. Even although we had a great wi-fi connection by our out of doors outlet, we bumped into pairing points. The plug wouldn’t pair with our residence Wi-Fi. We determined to return inside and join the plug to our Wi-Fi router by plugging it into an outlet inside 4 toes of our router. Turns out we continued to have a problem with connecting to our residence Wi-Fi community. Cync does require the out of doors plug be inside 40 toes of your router. Our outdoors location is near 40 toes, however the sign was sturdy sufficient. We contacted customer support and so they assisted us in getting the out of doors plug to attach with our router. It appeared we needed to do two issues: manufacturing unit reset the plug and replace the app’s firmware.
Might should do a manufacturing unit reset to pair your Cync out of doors plug with your own home Wi-Fi Network.GearBrain
To do a manufacturing unit reset, it’s essential to plug in your Cync Outdoor Smart Plug and maintain down the 2 buttons on high of the plug for 15 seconds. The lights will flip purple then again to blue. Next, go to the Cync app and join your plug to your own home Wi-Fi. Your Cync out of doors plug ought to join shortly like ours did once we did the manufacturing unit reset.
After the plug is added to the Cync app, it’s endorsed to test the firmware. According to our Cync customer support consultant, the firmware may pose an issue for some. By updating the firmware, it could assist remove many points.
Another good function of this out of doors good plug is the person outlet management. We preferred how we may use one out of doors outlet to plug in our good plug after which management two totally different strings of lights, one within the entrance and the opposite within the yard. We may have them work on totally different schedules which was good.
Name. your two retailers on Cync out of doors plug within the app.GearBrain
Summary
Outdoor good plugs are good units which might make working your out of doors lighting simpler, particularly across the holidays. They may also assist prevent cash in your vitality invoice by having them activate/off at particular occasions. But these good units do current issues to customers due to the place they’re put in. Not many houses have good Wi-Fi indicators outdoors and also you want a great wi-fi connection to your router for the good plug to work correctly.
Another merchandise to pay attention to when putting in good plugs outdoors is what number of retailers do you want? Many good good out of doors plugs include one outlet or if they’ve two, work in tandem and never individually. If you will have a necessity for multiple good out of doors good plug however have one out of doors outlet, GE Lighting’s new Cync Outdoor Smart Plug is an effective possibility. It’s constructed to resist the tough winters and steamy summers. And it could management multiple strand of lights individually utilizing one outlet.
Overall, the Cync Outdoor Smart Plug is a “plug and play” good system, no pun supposed. It’s straightforward to setup and management your out of doors lights or units. It’s nicely constructed and works with each main voice platforms, Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. But the very best function of this out of doors good plug is the fee. Hard to beat getting two out of doors good plugs in a single for lower than $30.
Pros
- Individually management every outlet
- Price
- Well-designed
Cons
- Connectivity issues on preliminary setup
- Need to set scenes utilizing Bluetooth
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