[UniFi] UniFi Smart Power Plug | Review & Troubleshoot

Review

Perfomance

The purpose of the device is simple. When an internet connection starts to act up, one of the first thing to try is power cycle the modem. USP Plug connecting to the model will achieve this task automatically. This is especially handy if power cycling needs to be done remotely or if issue occurs middle of the night, so that you do not have to start a morning with powercyling.

Xfinity actually offers remote restarting of cable modem via internet access but if the modem becomes unreachable by internet, I surmise this won’t work so we still need a real power cycling. Even though this sounds simple task, there are three major potential error situation to consider.

• False positive
• False negative
• Unstable Wi-Fi Connectivity

False positive

The first case is USP Plug is falsely detecting as internet became disconnected and reboots the modem when there is no real issue on the internet connection. This will result in whole network to lose internet connection while the network really did not have an issue to begin with.

False negative

This is the opposite of above case. While there is actual loss of internet connection, USP Plug does not reboot. This means the device is not doing what it supposed to do.

Unstable Wi-Fi connectivity

This is a case where USP Plug disconnect itself from the network. This may or may not necessary be an issue of USP Plug itself but may be from the network itself but regardless of the etiology, one can imagine losing Wi-Fi Connectivity equates to loss of the device control I.e. either false positive or false negative can occur.

I have lost my first three months log and only have logs from August. During the past 3 months of log, I see 4 log events of USP plug disconnects.

I do not recall actual subjective issue experienced from these events. I had my modem; hence, USP Plug powering it, moved to network rack on the morning of 10/18 where there is not much of Wi-Fi signal. So I surmise 10/18 event is from actual the modem migration. I have Wi-Fi AI on running every day at 3:00 am, so 10/30 even could be possibly related to it thought not seen on any other day seems strange. I cannot be certain the exact cause of the other two events, which may be due to Wi-Fi instability or related to tweaking/playing with network configuration. Having said this, given its such low numbers of occurrence and real no subjective negative experience from it, I do not think this is a real issue of USP Plug.

On the other hand, what has lead me to write this article is that I have recently seen 9 “outlet has been restarted“ warning out of the sudden. We can clearly see from above since the early August, this warning were never recorded until 10/29, but from there I had 9 events within less than 2 days window. Some of which are due to my own restarting by pressing USP Plug buttons. This time I have actually noticed my internet not connecting. After rebooting UDM Pro, re-adopting USP Plug after re-installing stable firmware, I have not had issue anymore. Since it took multiple reboots, I feel the issue may not be on the modem but outside of it, perhaps on UDM Pro Network Controller. But it could also have been “false positive” events triggering modem reboot i.e. the time I lost internet connection is actually due to modem restarting rather than loss of internet connection initiated modem restart.

Overall, I believe the issue I have experienced could well be explained by my own doing, and otherwise, USP Plug has not created much if very rare issue. So I would give the performance 9/10.

Feature

Although its core functionality is automatic power cycling, one can imagine a few potential handy or perhaps some may consider mandatory configuration/features to support/strengthen this functionality. For example,

1. Wait time customization
2. Scheduled power cycle
3. Voice control support

Wait time cutomization

In order to avoid “false positive” or “false negative” cases, it may be helpful if one can specify, how long to wait to before deciding internet is really down.

Scheduled power cycle

One of the first and the best advice IT techs, support personnel give is “have you rebooted the system?” Independent of the issue, powercycling will bring back the device to the status where the device is meant to be by developers. So occasional powercycling may be a good idea. Imagine if you can schedule USP Plug to power cycle once a week in middle of night. I can see there are many feel such feature is nice addition.

Voice control support

“Alexa, reboot the modem!”

USP Plug can be turned on/off via UniFi Network controller app. It would be nice if this is HomeKit, Alexa and/or Google Assistant compatible. If it was, then one can voice control and that allows integration with corresponding automation platform.

Unfortunately, none of above features are supported. Therefore, I consider USP Plug is extremely limited in its feature/functionality.

Value

There are many smart plugs on Amazon ranging from $7-$25. However, there aren’t many that have the automatic reboot functionality. One I can find on Amazon on quick search costs $21 and have only 2.5 star rating (Link).

Overall

Overall, the price point is right. It serves its function. However, it is extremely feature limited. USP Plug has a very specific use.