Athom Smart Plugs (Reliability / Lifetime / Time to failure) [please contribute]

Mahko_Mahko · December 4, 2022, 7:46am

Edit:

TLDR; Stay clear.

To summarise the thread, there’s enough premature failures to conclude that these suffer from the same short lifetimes as other cheap smartplugs. Numerous people have reported multiple failures with varying use cases in under 12months.

OP:

After having various other smart plugs fail after 1-2 years (namely Kogan and Brilliant), I’m trying my luck with Athoms.

It would be great if other Athom smart plug users contributed too so we can easily track performance.

Mine have been running from a few days ago (01/12/2022). I have the AU plug v2. The AU ones aren’t currently certified.

Please post:

purchase or deployment date
version

Feel free to link to posts elsewhere.

I just saw a first report of reliability issues.

markpurcell · December 4, 2022, 8:32pm

I have the AU plug as well.

These are a lot simpler to get operating with Home Assistant and I have even had a few firmware updates through ESPHome so I have confidence it is under active development.

I find the tuya plugs the most complex to setup, so these running ESPHome are a delight.

My uptime sensor is still modest.

Mahko_Mahko · December 4, 2022, 8:39pm

When did you buy them and when did you start using them?

markpurcell · December 4, 2022, 8:49pm

Bought and started using about 2 months ago.

JulianDH · December 4, 2022, 11:31pm

In the UK have three running for the last seven weeks. They are running some audio equipment and the on\ off is occasional but power consumption seems accurate. Have worked flawlessly and arriving preflashed with ESP Home which was great. I have installed updated custom configuration. The build is great. I would not be putting a large load through them though. They are not hugely expensive but useful for equipment in hard to get to places

wattmatters · December 6, 2022, 2:40am

I have six running. Australian plugs.

2 added 8 July 2022 (pool pump and dishwasher)
2 added 25 August 2022 (washing machine and dryer)
2 added 16 October 2022 (kitchen fridge and mancave fridge)

So easy to set up, and they rejoin the network without fuss if there is an outage. The inbuilt energy accumulation meter seamlessly works with the HA Energy Dashboard.

Hope they last because I dislike the Arlec/Tuya plugs I have. Such a pain to set up Tuya and LocalTuya, and when something goes awry it’s hours of troubleshooting. Plus they just never seems to connect as reliably.

Main downside is the form factor, they are 2-3 mm too wide to fit side by side in a double GPO.

Mahko_Mahko · December 6, 2022, 3:36am

Nice summary. Thank you.

wattmatters · December 15, 2022, 11:10pm

Well yesterday my pool pump was having issues. I’ve removed the plug and put it on a test outlet to monitor. But I’ve noticed these sorts of log entries are now common:

The “Restart became unavailable” message is strange.

I had also added a new off grid inverter couple of days ago (not powering this outlet) and I wondered if it was creating interference with the connection. The output power line from this inverter runs close to the plug.

I looked at my other plugs and the Dishwasher and Kitchen Fridge plug are showing the same thing:

While the three other plugs are showing a clear log book.

I’m not taking this as a good sign.

The pool pump and dishwasher plugs are the two “oldest” at six months, the Kitchen fridge only a few months. I think I will remove them as I do not wait any failure of power, especially to fridges.

It’s a shame because these are really easy to set up and I liked the way they would just auto manage reconnection to wifi after any dropouts or power outages.

Mahko_Mahko · December 16, 2022, 12:05am

That’s no good…

Do you have uptime sensors on them?

Are they restarting or just losing connectivity momentarily?

wattmatters · December 16, 2022, 3:12am

Yes. But I don’t know if they mean much.

Seems momentary but I don’t actually know what the log entries mean, nor if the log entries correspond with reality.

This pattern keeps occurring:

Mahko_Mahko · December 16, 2022, 6:41am

The uptime sensor should reset if the device restarts.

That indicates something “potentially quite significant” is happening to cause a reboot. I would be “more concerned” about that.

I think the other logs more relate to connectivity issues. Could be issues with your network or signal strength etc.

Devices will also restart after 15min of no connection.

I’m no expert in this stuff, just my understanding…

Mahko_Mahko · December 16, 2022, 6:45am

Although looking closer at your logs, it looks like the the device is restarting when the switch/pump is turned on ?

Yeah that’s probably not good…

JulianDH · December 16, 2022, 10:05pm

Pumps are not good. Their start up current can be surprisingly high. My 4.2amp pump turned out to be drawing close to 14amp at start up. I am not sure any of these consumer small “smart” plugs are cut out for this type of life.

wattmatters · December 17, 2022, 12:23am

My VS pump has quite a soft start. It also doesn’t explain why the same behaviour is also appearing for other plugs, just without the same impact of stopping the appliance, at least not yet.

The ESPHome aspect I quite like but it would seem the plugs themselves are not sufficiently robust.

If we can’t reliably use them for the appliances we most likely want to control or measure consumption for then what’s the point of them?

I plan to provide some feedback to the seller. I guess it won’t stop them being sold or make a difference but at least I can try.

Chandler · December 19, 2022, 6:03am

These logbook entries look like HASS is losing connection with the devices - not that they are restarting/switching/etc.

Did the issue only start appearing when you got the inverter installed?

wattmatters · December 19, 2022, 11:10pm

The pump switching off unscheduled started at pretty much around the same time as the new inverter commenced operation. I can’t say for certain it’s a cause and I can’t say for how long those log errors have been going on, only that they are appearing on some of the other plugs as well.

I haven’t as yet decommissioned the others, they still seem to be working. I have the pool pump plug connected to a GPO inside so I can monitor it. It is still generating those same log messages.

What I am going to try though is to change the GPO I use for the pump, see if that helps. No time for those experiments at the moment, I plan to report back later.

markpurcell · December 19, 2022, 11:43pm

Is your pool pump socket outside?

For my pool pump, I went the Bunnings Deta grid connect smart outdoor double powerpoint, which had been solid for a year but am runing localtuya which is a pain.

I would like something like an athom/ ESPHOME with an outdoor rating.

https://www.bunnings.com.au/deta-grid-connect-smart-outdoor-double-powerpoint_p0172781

wattmatters · December 20, 2022, 3:36am

It is and it’s a regular outdoor double GPO but it is inside a housing and under a wide eave so doesn’t see weather.

wattmatters · January 26, 2023, 2:08am

Just a follow up. Of the six Athom plugs I have, five are still working fine. These are all deployed as always on power/energy monitoring devices for specific appliances. None of these five plugs are used for any switching.

The one which failed was used for switching the (soft start) pool pump.

Even though it failed to operate correctly as a switch, I wanted to see if it would still operate as an always on monitoring device, and I have been testing it in this mode of operation but alas it fails as it still randomly turns the power off. So that one is a bust.

I have some more coming as I want to use them as power monitors, and not for switching. Frankly they are the easiest plug to set up for that.

sparkydave · January 26, 2023, 4:11am

Are they covering it under warranty given it’s only 6 months old?