It’s that time of year again. The 2019 CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas, Nevada is now underway and will roll through the remainder of this week. What that means for all of us is that big announcements and unveilings will be made in virtually every category of electronic goods there is. The first one that I have the pleasure of telling you all about is a major press release from TP-Link and “Kasa Smart” (Kasa is TP-Link’s brand name app). Read on if you’d like to know what this major smart home producer is developing for your benefit in 2019.

 

TP-Link / Kasa Smart Announcement

You know TP-Link from its many excellent smart plugs and switches, and if you’ve been using any of these products already, you’ll also be familiar with the brand name Kasa, which is TP-Link’s very capable smart phone app.

What you likely didn’t know, however, is that TP-Link and Kasa were about to burst onto the scene with several new kinds of smart home products—seven of them in fact. These new devices seem to be planning to use “Kasa Smart” as their main branding, and I can’t exactly say just yet whether or not everything will be coming to Best Buy, but there’s a pretty good chance that most (if not all) of it will.

Also included in the big announcement is Kasa Smart’s new cloud-based artificial intelligence platform that will allow for cross-product interaction across all of these new devices. This smart cloud is said to be capable of facilitating (on average) 50 million unique cloud interactions per day, every day, and Kasa’s new “Smart Action” platform offers many useful features such as facial recognition.

 

Photo by Ted Kritsonis

Among the newly announced devices that fit into the smart home security realm are a Kasa Smart Video Doorbell (shown above and below), a Kasa Smart Wire-Free Outdoor Security Camera System, and a Kasa Smart Spot Indoor Security Camera.

Photo by Ted Kritsonis

On the smart home convenience side of the ledger there will be a new Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Power Outlet, Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Outdoor Plug, Kasa Smart Wi-Fi LED Light Strip, and Kasa Smart Wi-Fi Light Switch with Voice Assistant. This last one (shown below) has even been named a CES 2019 Innovation Awards Honouree.

Photo by Ted Kritsonis

We will know a lot more about each of these products in time, as well as which ones will for sure be coming to Best Buy (most of them likely won’t be out before summer anyway). In addition, we should see some of these come in for thorough product reviews once samples become available.

In the mean time, stay tuned to right here on the Best Buy Canada Blog where we are endeavouring to bring you full coverage of all the latest exciting tech product news coming out of the 2019 CES. We have boots on the ground at the show and will have excellent (non stock) photos of many of the goods as the week progresses along, so bookmark the site if you haven’t already and keep checking back in.

Note: Speaking of excellent photos, I’ll leave a couple of bonus shots (taken by Ted Kritsonis) for you below of products from the same good folks at TP-Link/Kasa (this one is a new router that just debuted at the show). You can read Brad Moon’s full blog announcement for that one right here.

You can also see Best Buy’s complete range of current TP-Link and Smart Home products online right now.

Leonard Bond
Leo enjoys writing about everything from secret agents to tech toys and gadgets to professional hockey. Find his reviews and other product related commentary right here on the Best Buy Blog and his latest hockey rants at www.hockeycontroversial.com.