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5 Apr 2025

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Country Life: Fernglen Farm's sheep dairy addition
Fernglen Farm is a family affair helping people learn more about the benefits of sheep milk, while also ensuring strong welfare standards for their animals and finding new ways to balance the hardships of farming on Wairarapa's coast.

How multinational dairy companies convinced ministers to back away from new rules for baby formula
Tougher guidelines for baby formula were 11 years in the making. But for multinational dairy companies, profits were at stake.

Morphing Meerkat leads sophisticated phishing operation
A new cyber threat, led by the actor known as Morphing Meerkat, is exploiting DNS records to launch sophisticated phishing attacks on over 100 brands.

More information needed for dairy compensation claims, court says
An attempt by large-scale dairy operators Van Leeuwen Group for further compensation after their farms were impacted by Mycoplasma bovis has stalled.

Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender review: Flaw ahead!
At a glanceExpert's Rating Pros 3 individually controlled smart outlets (+3 dumb outlets) 3 fast-charging USB outlets Compatible with Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, and IFTTT Cons Gives no warning when it can no longer provide surge protection Surge protection limited to 205 joules Our Verdict Don’t buy this multi-outlet for its surge protection feature, as it won’t warn you when it can no longer deliver it. Price When Reviewed This value will show the geolocated pricing text for product undefined Best Pricing Today Best Prices Today: Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender (model P306) Retailer Price $34.99 View Deal Price comparison from over 24,000 stores worldwide Product Price Price comparison from Backmarket TP-Link’s Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender has some great features, as well as one critical shortcoming that prevents us from recommending it. Tapo doesn’t make big promises for this product in terms of its surge protection, but it does list a key feature on the box: the ability to warn you when it can no longer provide surge protection. If you’re considering buying Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender for that feature, don’t. Here’s why. The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender isn’t all bad news—provided you’re not buying it for surge protection. Most surge protectors use sacrificial MOVs (metal oxide varistors) to absorb excess voltage from power surges, and this one is no exception. The thing is, MOVs wear out over time, losing some of their ability to absorb that excess voltage with each power surge until they can no longer offer any protection at all. Since the number and severity of power surges will vary based on a wide range of factors, starting with the quality of power coming from your utility, it’s impossible to predict when a given surge protector’s MOV (or MOVs, as the case may be) will wear out. The outlets on the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender are spaced 1.56 inches apart, so wall warts and oversized plugs don’t block adjacent outlets.Michael Brown/Foundry Some surge protectors will simply stop sending power to their outlets when this happens, and that’s the best approach in my opinion. Others will trigger a red or green “protection” indicator—typically an LED—to stop glowing when they can no longer offer protection. The latter approach is far more common, and you should periodically check yours to make sure it’s still lit. The problem with the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender is that it doesn’t do either of these things. Its MOV will eventually wear out and cease offering surge protection, but you’ll have no way of knowing when that has happened. I verified this fact with TP-Link, and the manufacturer replied that the absence of a protection indicator is due to the product’s “structural limitations,” but that it recognizes this “as a potential area for improvement in future product iterations.” I’d say that’s an understatement. It would have been better to not include surge protection at all than to have users gamble as to when this one will stop offering protection without any warning. Specifications The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender isn’t all bad news—provided you’re not buying it for surge protection. But before we leave that topic, allow me to report a few details you find won’t find on TP-Link’s website. Three USB charging ports–1 USB-C and 2 USB-A–deliver up to 18 watts of power. Michael Brown/Foundry This product’s surge protector element can handle only a maximum of 205 joules, but it offers 1,200 volts of clamping voltage, based on a 6,000-volt surge on the line-to-neutral leg of the circuit it’s connected to. Thumbs up for that: Protection for the line-to-neutral leg is what’s needed most in a properly grounded home. Compare that to the Philips 6-Outlet Surge Protector Power Strip, a “dumb” surge protector that offers up to 720 joules of protection, but only 500V of protection across the line-to-neutral leg of the circuit. The Philips product also lacks USB-charging ports, but it costs less than half as much as the Tapo product. I should also note, however, that the Philips product doesn’t have any LED indicators either. The key difference is that the Philips product will cease to provide power to its outlets when its MOV wears out and can no longer provide surge protection. An LED would be superfluous in that product. OK, let’s turn our attention to the rest of the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender’s considerable specifications and features. It occupies the top half of a duplex outlet, but necessarily also covers the bottom half. If you have an old-school outlet with a middle screw hole for the cover plate, you can remove the cover, insert a provided screw into the center of the Outlet Extender, and fasten it to that hole. You can also screw a provided post into the back of the extender and plug that into the second outlet’s ground hole for added stability when plugging and unplugging devices. Each of the three smart outlets can also be controlled with a button on the side. The post below the electrical prongs plugs into the second grounded outlet to provide additional stability. Michael Brown/Foundry The Outlet Extender can handle up to a maximum of 1,875 watts, and each of its six outlets puts out a maximum of 15 amps. It’s equipped with one USB-C charging port and two USB-A charging ports on its right-hand side. These deliver a maximum output of 5 volts and 3 amps, providing up to 18 watts of fast charging. More specifically, single-port outputs are 5V/3A, 9V/2A, or 12V/1.5A. You can rest your smartphone on top of the outlet extender while it’s charging, and a lip on its front edge will prevent the device from sliding forward and off. There are six grounded AC outlets in front, three on each side and spaced 1.57-inches apart to accommodate at least smaller wall warts or oversized plugs without blocking adjacent outlets. Only the three outlets on the left-hand side are smart plugs, and each one has an on/off switch and an LED indicator that glows when it’s on. The three outlets on the right-hand side are always-on “dumb” plugs and don’t have buttons or LEDs. An ambient light sensor at the top of the extender’s face triggers a dimmable white, down-facing LED nightlight to glow. This feature is highly customizable in the Tapo app, based on the level of ambient light that will activate it, a time-and-date schedule, or even a countdown timer. An LED beneath the ambient light sensors reports the overall status of the device (solid white when connected to the cloud, blinking orange when disconnected from Wi-Fi, and so on). Smart features The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender connects to your 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network, with up to WPA3 security. Although it’s not Matter certified, it is compatible with all three major smart home ecosystems: Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple Home. It’s also compatible with Samsung SmartThings, Siri Shortcuts, and IFTTT. You’ll use the Tapo smart home app to program and control the device. This software is also used to control everything from security cameras to smart plugs, smart bulbs, robot vacuums, and other smart home products carrying TP-Link’s Tapo or Kasa Smart brands. But you can organize the app by assigning everything to “rooms” and designating “favorites” to make it easier to manage everything. You can control every Tapo smart home device with the Tapo app, which can also control any of TP-Link’s Kasa Smart products. Michael Brown/Foundry Widgets are provided for each of the Outlet Extender’s three smart plugs, but there’s just one widget for all three of its USB ports. The widgets have power buttons for toggling them on and off, or you can tap anywhere else on the widget to open a new full-screen window for more granular information and control, including scheduling. You can set “away modes” that will randomly turn the assigned smart outlets on and off between defined days and times. Plug a lamp into one, two, or all three smart outlets, and it will make your home look occupied while you’re away from home. Separate countdown timers will turn any or all the assigned smart outlet on or off after a given number of hours and minutes has elapsed. The smart plugs don’t track energy consumption, but they will report the number of hours they’ve been energized for the current day, the past seven days, and the past 30 days. If you have other TP-Link or Tapo products, you can create routines that will cause those devices to trigger each other—and without needing a smart home hub. For example, you can have a TP-Link or Tapo security camera trigger a light plugged into the Outlet Extender when it detects motion after sunset, and then automatically turn off after a programmed amount of time. Or you can create a shortcut button that dims your Tapo or TP-Link smart bulb when you’re ready for bed and turns off any of the company’s smart plugs, including this Outlet Extender. The more compatible gadgets you have, the more you can do with this feature. If you’re an IFTTT subscriber, of course, you don’t necessarily need Tapo or TP-Link products to accomplish similar goals. TP-Link’s Tapo and Kasa Smart devices can operate together in the same smart home environment. Michael Brown/Foundry Further reading: This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart plugs. Should you buy a Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender? In terms of a multi-plug, the Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Wall Outlet Extender is a fine product. It expands any duplex outlet into three smart outlets and provides three more “dumb” outlets. You also get three fast-charging smart USB plugs. So far, so good. As a surge protector, on the other hand, it almost utterly fails. Not knowing when a surge protector can no longer protect attached devices from power surges is worse than not having surge protection in the first place. Whether smart or dumb, if Tapo’s Outlet Extender didn’t offer surge protection, you could at least plug a single-outlet surge protector into one of its outlets to power a sensitive device—a computer, for example—that you want to protect. That said, you should never daisy-chain surge protectors–i.e., plug one surge protector into another surge protector–as that has the potential to overload the electrical circuit to which they’re connected. An overloaded electrical circuit is a fire risk.

What is live shopping and will it take off?
Big in Asia, live shopping involves brands putting on live shows to sell direct to shoppers.

Lush and Kwik Fit warn tax rise will push up prices
The brands are warning of the impact of employer National Insurance Contribution rises which kick in on Sunday.

Asus’ latest video teases a possible Xbox gaming handheld
There’s been a lot of speculation on when, or if, Microsoft will throw its hat into the ring with an Xbox-branded handheld, either in console or PC form. Unconfirmed leaks indicate that something along those lines could be coming as soon as this year—and if a new promo from Asus is to be believed, they might be the ones to deliver it. Asus is one of the more visible brands that created handheld gaming PCs in the wake of the Steam Deck, with both the ROG Ally and the upgraded ROG Ally X. A new promo video that debuted on the company’s Twitter/X shows a telling little cartoon: the Omni mascot robot gets into a chamber with an ROG Ally and a Raikiri Pro, an Asus-branded PC/Xbox controller. The resultant mishap appears to splice them all together into a shadowy handheld with an Ally-style configuration and LED rings around the thumbsticks. The video in and of itself would only be mildly suggestive of Xbox-ness, but as Xbox Era notes, the post includes the hashtag #PlayALLYourGames, and Microsoft’s official Xbox Twitter account replied with a meme post. Between the rumors and the mild branding tag-team, there’s definitely something brewing here. I would guess that it’s a slightly tweaked version of the ROG Ally X, running Windows 11, which comes with some Xbox branding. The hashtag indicates to me that Game Pass streaming will be a big part of the package. Microsoft could bolster the partnership by giving the handheld pride of place in its retail and online stores, or by putting it into the same places you can buy Xbox consoles, like Walmart and Target in the US. Little snippets in the video—like “Marathon stamina,” “More capacity,” and “Faster speed”—could be indicative of hardware upgrades. Or meaningless fluff. Flip a coin. But I very much doubt that this is a full-blown “handheld Xbox” that plays game files intended only for the console. If nothing else, with most of Xbox’s biggest “exclusives” also available on PC either as standard games or streaming on Game Pass, it would be a lot of extra work to make a smaller, less-powerful Xbox console that would arguably be less capable than something like the Steam Deck, or even the older Ally designs. There’s no mention of a date in the video, even in preview form. (Oh, and in case you’re wondering: the post was made on March 31st. It could be April Fool’s related, but that seems unlikely given the lack of any real attempt at humor.) We’ll have to be patient to see what Asus—and Microsoft?—are cooking up.