Yeah, it’s disappointing we have so few choices here for kit like that.
I originally started on TP-Link plugs (and still have a few) but don’t want cloud.
I bought some Meross plugs which can work locally, but the sheer size of them makes them impractical.
The Athom ones worked well for the requirement. I was about to put them on the kids electric blankets (to make sure they turn off at bedtime) but will now re-think that.
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Just chiming in on this thread. I’ve got 4 of these plugs, all running Tasmota. I bought them in July last year, and have all been fine so far:
- Dishwasher
- Washing machine
- Dryer (heat pump)
- Spare
I also didn’t know they weren’t Oz certified. I bought them to replace the Arlec ones I bought and then returned as I couldn’t get LocalTuya working properly and I’m really not a fan of the cloud-based setup. I wanted purely local control.
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Weren’t? 
Oops, yeah. Weren’t.
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So I have had 6 of these Athom smartplugs (pre-flashed with Tasmota) running for about 9mths now. I havent had any failures, however, I am notciing that the 2 that are the furthest away from the router have started becoming ‘Unavaiable’ quite a lot in the past couple of weeks.
They have worked flawlessly up to this point and have never had any connectivity issues with any of them.
Originally, I put this ‘Unavaiable’ down to the fact it has been raining heavilly for many weeks and the humidity is close to 100% for the past few weeks so I thought this may be interfering with the wifi signal. The one furthest away is located under a deck next to the pool equipment and it controls the pool lights. It has always been close to the max useable range of the wifi, but has always operated flawlessly. This one seems to now be ‘Unavailable’ constantly now.
I am now suspicious that becasue it is located in an area that is outdoors, as well as near a chlorinated pool that the chlorine fumes will slowly corrode any metal nearby. Perhaps this may have affected some internal components enough to decrease the signal range just enough to not be able to connect now? When i move the Athom plug closer to the WiFi it reconnects.
My question is: Has anyone else experienced Athom units that were located far away from the router and used to work well and now start to lose wifi signal over time?
Anyway, hopefully my experience adds to this thread for others thinking of using the Athom plugs.
I don’t know.
But perhaps you could swap around a few plugs to try to isolate as to whether it’s individual hardware or environmental.
It’s a little bit of a hassle in practice to do this, but it’s an option.
Looks like my washing machine plug has stopped working. It was only used for energy monitoring but as of this morning I cannot get it to re-connect to the network.
It still operates with the manual switch but unless it communicates, as far as I’m concerned it’s dead.
It lasted 266 days.
The pool pump plug lasted 161 days.
That’s pretty shit. Shame.
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My ESPHome plug has been running without issue for 13months now, also just used for state detection on my washing machine
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I’ve got a couple of Athom plugs (AU version) running ESPHome. They’ve been installed for a month or so now and they work “as advertised” but I do find that they go unavailable for a second constantly (as others have reported here) which is annoying as I can’t get automations working against the power monitoring since they don’t report power at a certain state for a consistent time (my existing automations are “if power > X for Y minutes” but as they go unavailable that resets their timeout.
I might try a virtual sensor instead that is an average of power over the last Y minutes and automate against that, which should be more stable.
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As a workaround, you could implement the condition on the ESP (as a binary sensor).
I implement a fair bit of that kind of thing on the esp for this exact reason - more reliable.
You would probably use a template binary sensor and both delayed_on and delayed_off filters.
Like this:
binary_sensor:
- platform: template
id: power_alert
icon: mdi:flash-alert
name: "Power Alert"
lambda: return id(your_power_sensor).state >= 50; #Adjust number
filters:
- delayed_on: 180s #Adjust as required.
- delayed_off: 60s #Adjust as required.
on_press:
then: #Do something useful if you need.
- switch.turn_off: power_control_box_switch
- logger.log: 'High Power for too long! Turning off robot!!!'
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I have two V1 since April '22 and four V2 since July '22 (Schuko version). Two are used for my and my girlfriends desktops (gaming-PC, monitors, speakers), one for a server, one for the fridge, one for the washing machine and one for an array of power supply units (battery charging) plugged into a power strip. No failings so far.
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I’ve tried with a statistics sensor with a 5 minute sliding window but it didn’t seem to work. Currently the devices I have them plugged into aren’t ideal for this kind of experimenting 
Just seen these pop-up; proper wall socket! Shame not double gang and I cant see the CE certification
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Interesting, agree about the double gang but looks like its a re-worked EU plug.
I guess 16A is the relay rating as the plug you plug in it will have a max 13A fuse
The UK CA mark on the sockets look like its replacing the CE mark:
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In my experience the failure rate is high. Bought a total of 10 plugs less than a year ago and 3 have failed so far.
If you have updated the firmware through ESPHome they will not provide a replacement but will offer to send you two new plugs for the price of one.
Now replacing the failing plugs with a different brand.
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What devices were attached to the Athom? I have three but after all the negative experiences I keep mine on light duties.
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What brand are you trying?
I’m not really an expert on looking at capacitors, but I think I have the same problem. I bought 2 Athom PG01 (EU) and both of them failed. They just suddenly stopped working. No unexpected reboots or anything else, they just stopped. If you plug them in, they get warm, but no other sign of life. One was powering a PC for about 8 months (I guess), the other just a small christmas light cord for +/- 11 months.
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I think another one of my Athom plugs has died. Mancave fridge. Will know for sure tomorrow.
That’s the third one to crap out. It was installed October 2022.
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Actually looking at my logs I think six of my seven remaining Athom plugs are on the way out. It was a fun experiment but I suggest people steer clear of these things. None have made it to a year in service.
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