Crispin wrote

Hi everyone - does anyone else use TP-Link Easy Smart Switches and Macs?

Sure.

Unfortunately this takes me straight to the home page of my Sky Hub (my internet router) to which I am connected by WiFi

That means that your Sky Hub also uses 192.168.0.1, good to know since you now select a free, unused static IP for the switch in the 192.168.0.x range (for example 192.168.0.2).

To do so:

1. Connect the MacBook directly to the switch. Don't connect the switch to any other device while configuring it, especially not to your Sky Hub b/c it uses the same IP as the switch already.

2. Go to Location in the Apple menu (or start the System Preferences app) and open Network Preferences. Set a static IP for the MacBook (e.g. 192.168.0.5), leave all other fields blank.

3. Connect to the switch's web UI again, log into it, change the switch's IP to 192.168.0.2 or another free, unused static IP (make sure it's outside of your DHCP pool if any), apply it and remember to save the new config.

4. Revert back the MacBook's IP settings to DHCP or whatever you used before.

Done. If you have to configure several more TP-Link devices regularly, you might create a Location Profile for this static IP on the MacBook, so you could select it easily each time you need it.

I have looked for a utility, but can only find Windows versions - does TP-Link just not support Mac users? Do I need to send it back (plus the 2 TL-SG108E switches I also purchased to create my network)?

No need to send the switch back. Of course the switch can be easily configured using MacBooks and being a native UNIX system, MacOS is even more related to the Linux OS running on your switch than is Windoze. TP-Link switches are absolutely suitable in UNIX environments.

BTW: While you are at it configuring the two TL-SG108E, update their firmware to the latest version, it fixes some nasty bugs.