That depends on your criteria for “best”. Easiest, fastest, cheapest, most protection from surges, etc. All have different answers.

You are on the right track I think. I have a wifi surge protector and it ties into my google. So I can say hey google turn on pinballs or use the app and turn them all on at once. Those choices you have posted look good. Mine are in a line in my basement so they all feed off the same outlet. Seems to work with no issues! Since yours are spaced out I'd go with the wifi plug on each outlet. You can name them and turn the ones on that you want or turn them all on at the same time that way from the app.

I run Tp link all through my house pins and otherwise.

As for surges I’d be just as worried about lighting coming up your ground line than getting spiked on your hot and neutral. If you have a lot of electrical activity coming I usually unplug.

I have a couple of these. I set up Shortcuts on my iPhone so I can say “Hey Siri, Picard to Enterprise” and my STTNG turns on.

https://www.amazon.com/Kasa-Smart-Power-Strip-TP-Link/dp/B07G95FFN3/ref=sr_1_4

I started a topic a while ago that had some good info.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/wifi-enabled-smart-plugs

Turning on lots of pins/equipment at the same time will create a huge amp spike in your circuit breakers and possibly blow fuses (in your house). Better approach would be to turn on maybe 2-4 at a time.

I have my pins plugged into power strips plugged into Amazon Smart plugs. I can say, "computer, turn on the arcade" in the kitchen, and by the time I get to the basement, everything is turned on and booted up. I also keep my light strips in the ceiling on this too, so I can turn lights on or off as I play, and have a dot hooked up to my old stereo mounted above the pins so I can play music and change songs while I play pinball... hands free!

I have the Kasa smart plugs you have linked. If you want to set up your current current surge protector to be "smart", then just plug your Smart outlet into the wall, and then your surge protector into the smart outlet.

In the app you can name each outlet whatever name you want. I have individual games set up with Alexa. So for me it's "Alexa, turn on Jurassic Park" or "Alexa, turn on Deadpool". Obviously if you have your surge protector plugged into the smart outlet, you can say "Alexa, turn on _______" and anything plugged into that surge protector will turn on.

Just as easy, you can pull up the app on your phone, anywhere in your house, and click the power button to turn on your game(s).

Me, notes FatPanda ’s IP so I too can click the power button from anywhere in the world. https://forbestalk.com/news/tech/hackers-can-use-smart-plugs-to-break-into-your-home-network/

No, you need a voice controlled device to use them via voice. The plugs themselves cannot be voice controlled.

Same can be said really of any wifi enabled device. Phone, camera systems, echo dot, smart TVs, this computer that I'm using to type up this response; the list goes on and on.

Basically, you would have discontinue using any wifi device/service in order to completely avoid any chances of hacking. Just by virtue of owning a car, a thief could potentially break in at any moment. It doesn't keep you from owning the car though. I'm not worried about it.

Wi-Fi can be hacked by capturing the key and decrypting it offline. You can sit in a parking lot to do it which what happened to Macys a about 13 years ago. Macys wasn't even encrypting the key which made it even easier. I cant remember how many customers credit cards and data were exposed in that hack. Once you're in on the network you can snoop around for devices and their vulnerabilities to hack them. The hackers can be "quiet" in how aggressive they scan the network. Unless you have some sort of network intrusion detection system to monitor malicious traffic you probably wouldn't even notice.

Hell, some people have their phones and wireless devices set to join networks automatically which can get you hacked. As an experiment a guy built a device and shipped it from his house to Defcon (hacker conference in Vegas). He picked up the device where it snooped and collected all kinds of cellular/customer data from passengers on the flight it was shipped on. He presented his findings at the conference.

One reminder that was made in the previous thread as well: Consider turning the outlets on one at a time in sequence, with a second or two between each. There is a crazy electrical 'inrush' that occurs any time power is applied to a device. Newer machines have far less, but any WPC era with a transformer was huge. After the switch is turned on and for a short period of time, it pulls ALOT more power than rated for normally... less than a second. A machine normally draws 2-3amps or so, but during inrush, could draw FIVE TIMES that. This is most notable if your outlets are far away from your circuit breaker panel.

It would be best to let that happen to each machine one at a time, so you are not forcing all of your machines to have inrush at the same time.

This is what I use, and I just taped the remote over my light switch. I can power 5 rows of games, with this kit.

https://www.amazon.com/Century-Wireless-Electrical-Household-Appliances/dp/B01N23GRYD/ref=asc_df_B01N23GRYD/

I have mine all on smart switches and controlled through a google home. I don’t turn them on all at once, but do power everything down at once. Not sure that’s necessary, but I read about the power surges and decided to do it that way.

The other thing I did was install a whole house surge protector in my electrical box. My electrician recommended it as the way to go, so I ran with that.

I love the idea of customizing the off/on verbage to the game! Might have to think through some of that for my games!

I use home assistant on a raspberry pi to control the game room and everything else in the house via a web app served from the rpi. Might be overkill for what you want to do but it works great, is expandable and secure.

Screenshot_20210702-083322_Home Assistant (resized).jpg

I use some that are similar to these.
Did the same, taped the remote to the wall.
It works really well, no app or wifi needed.