The TP Link folks will need to help with the port numbers, but don't put a smart switch in the DMZ! That would let anyone control it, and believe me folks will try - you may have noticed your router is constantly probed by hackers day and night.

You don't need to use port triggering as the connections should all be made from the TP Link devices outgoing to their cloud, there's no incoming connection. All you should need to do is allow the TP Links to make outgoing connections to the TP Link servers and that should be safe (or as safe as they can be given they talk to a cloud owned by someone else).

If you're really concerned about security you might want to block them completely and use an aftermarket app for remote access. Mine for example allows you to funnel the devices through a local server that only talks to your own google account so you manage it yourself - no one else's cloud is involved.

MikeP_AutomationManager wrote

The TP Link folks will need to help with the port numbers, but don't put a smart switch in the DMZ! That would let anyone control it, and believe me folks will try - you may have noticed your router is constantly probed by hackers day and night.

You don't need to use port triggering as the connections should all be made from the TP Link devices outgoing to their cloud, there's no incoming connection. All you should need to do is allow the TP Links to make outgoing connections to the TP Link servers and that should be safe (or as safe as they can be given they talk to a cloud owned by someone else).

If you're really concerned about security you might want to block them completely and use an aftermarket app for remote access. Mine for example allows you to funnel the devices through a local server that only talks to your own google account so you manage it yourself - no one else's cloud is involved.

So I should use the port forwarding? I did receive the port number (50443) from the TP Link agent that helped me with another problem and found the port 9999 from other posts in the forum. The problem with the port forwarding is that it needs an IP and since I have more than one plug that won't work. I even tried to just use the port forwarding for just one to see if it works, which it didn't so I'm not sure that would work even if I did set it up correctly. Unless I should be using some other type of IP address. Not quite sure what you mean by aftermarket app, so I don't know what exactly your suggesting as an alternative.

Nope, you don't use port forwarding, if they're being blocked it's the firewall section of your router configuration. You'll need to lower the firewall security level for outgoing devices, and/or unblock the protocol, ports, and IP addresses the TP Link devices use for remote access. You'd need specifics from the TP Link folks about which ports they need open and their server IPs.

There's a few aftermarket apps that let you setup your own internal servers that you can then access remotely. As I mentioned, mine uses google rather than going through the TP Link servers - you can click on my id here to see more info about it in my visitor messages and you'll find a link to my website. There's a few other apps as well, a google search for home automation can help track them down. But if you're only looking for casual remote access and you're not worried about giving the TP Link cloud your details and control it's probably easiest to just open the firewall for them.

You can try port 50443,9999,60443 and 443. They work on my case.
However, if your ISP blocks any one of these ports, it may not work.