A portable smart TV is one of the few screens you can genuinely move around the house, but it still needs to be plugged in to stay charged. Pairing it with a smart plug turns that simple power connection into something far more useful: you can switch the TV on or off from your phone, set it to power up at a certain time, and even control several screens at once. In this guide we walk through the whole setup, from checking compatibility to creating your first schedule, so you can get the most out of an incell portable smart TV and a smart plug.
Unlike a wall-mounted television that never moves, a portable smart TV is often carried between rooms or taken on trips. A smart plug gives you a few practical advantages:
The first question is whether your TV will actually respond when power is restored. This matters more than it sounds. Standard televisions often sit in standby after a power cut and wait for a button press, which makes a smart plug less useful for turning them on. Portable smart TVs are usually designed differently: many are built on the same Android platform as commercial display hardware and power on as soon as they receive power, which is exactly what makes them a good match for a smart plug.
There are two quick ways to test your screen. Plug the TV directly into the wall, switch the socket off and back on, and watch whether the TV boots by itself. If it does not, check the TV settings for a power-on option such as "Power on on AC restore," or look for a hardware power switch that keeps the display ready rather than in standby. A TV that turns on automatically when powered is the easy pairing case; one that stays in standby still works for switching off and for timed shutdowns, just not for unattended wake-ups.
You should also check the power draw. Portable smart TVs vary in size from 10-inch models to large all-in-one screens, and a heavy 32-inch display needs more headroom than a small LED screen. Read the rated wattage on your TV, confirm it stays within the plug's rated load, and choose a plug with enough capacity rather than the smallest one available.
Plug the smart plug into a wall outlet and open its companion app on your phone. Create an account if you are using the plug for the first time, and make sure Bluetooth and location services are enabled, since many apps look for nearby devices while pairing.
With the plug online and named, connect your TV. Plug the TV's power cord into the smart plug rather than the wall, then test the behaviour you checked earlier. Switch the plug off from the app, wait a few seconds, and switch it back on. If the TV boots up on its own, you are ready to automate the whole screen.
If it stays dark, the TV is using a soft standby state. In that case you can still use the plug reliably for turning the TV off and for timed cut-offs, and you can combine it with the TV's own "power on" setting in the display menu so that power restoration wakes the screen. Where the TV supports this setting, you effectively get the same hands-free experience as a display that boots by default. That behaviour is standard in commercial screens such as digital signage panels, which are built to come alive as soon as they are powered.
Once the TV reliably responds to the plug, set up timed power in the app. Most smart plug apps let you build a routine with a "when this happens" trigger and one or more actions.
A gentle example: set the plug to turn on at 7:00 on weekdays so the TV is ready for the morning news, and set it to turn off at 22:30 so the screen does not stay lit all night. You can adjust these times any time from your phone, and because the routines live in the app, they keep running even when you are outside the house.
If your smart plug works with Alexa or Google Assistant, link the plug's app to your assistant platform following the assistant's own device-linking steps. Once linked, ask your assistant to "turn on the Bedroom TV" or "turn off the Bedroom TV," and the plug will carry out the command. Voice control is a nice extra, but it is not required for schedules to run.
Pairing a portable smart TV with a smart plug is one of the cheapest ways to make a room feel more automated, and it works best with screens that boot on power, like the incell portable smart TV range from SSA. Start with the compatibility check, set up the plug in the app, connect the TV, and build a schedule that fits how you actually use the screen. From there, remote control and timed power are a small step away.
