I’m rather new to Home Assistant - so far I have integrated my Homematic IP devices as well as Sonos, Chromecast, the Xiaomi vacuum cleaner, and my Plex Server. Since this is quite fun, next step is to add a couple of smart plugs
However, I’m having a hard time figuring out which plugs to buy. Thus, is there any overview of existing plugs (or SmartHome hardware in general), preferably with information such as
hardware specs
with/without measuring energy consumption
flashing needed
soldering needed
with/without cloud
Obviously, feel free to recommend smart plugs
for Europe (Germany)
with and without energy consumption measurement
where soldering is not needed (flashing, e.g. via Wifi, is fine)
I personally use the Ikea Tradfri plugs. No cloud, but they do use Zigbee, so you would need a Hub or a Conbee 2 or something like that (in combination with the ZHA integration).
I think Ikea plugs are something like €10, which I think is not that expensive and they work like they should in my opinion.
No power measuring, no dimming. Just turning on or off.
Until recently, the TP-Link line was highly recommended. However, TP-Link pushed a firmware update to the UK which blocked any third-party integration (like HA) from working. To their credit, they have offered to downgrade the firmware for anyone who requests it, and the HA development team is working on a workaround for the new firmware. But TP-Link has declared third-party integrations or apps to be “unauthorized” and it’s not clear whether or not they will continue to allow them or implement further blocking.
I have not used them personally,
But I think a great WiFi choice, without flashing, would be the plug from Shelly (Plug S).
You could look into that one.
@fjgenieter thanks for letting me know! In fact, opening the Zigbee door for me made me look into alternatives to Ikea, and I have now ordered a couple of these - they are more compact, even a bit more cheap, and I have some good experiences with the brand.
I now have to figure out the hub I’m going for, though I have looked into the Conbee 2, but am not yet sure whether I can use that thing with my TrueNAS server…
Affordable would be something like 10 Euro (and maybe 20 for the ones which include power measuring)… I will look into the Shelly Plug, too!
FWIW I just ordered some D-Link DSP-W118 and while they show up in HA with minimal configuration but they do not have a unique ID so can’t be used much with HA. I will send them back (thank you Amazon) unless anyone knows how to get around this?
Meanwhile - it seems that there is no Wifi ‘smart’ plug that can be used in a simple fashion with HA - plenty of Googling and research, no clear answer. It seems that each manufacturer has tried to tie their products into their own world - hopefully Matter helps.
Being impatient I ordered a ConBee II stick and an OSRAM Smart+ ZigBee plug - let’s see if they play nicer. Failing that I will break out an ESP8266 and a relay and build my own…
I’ve bought the Shelly plugs! No cloud, friendly web config page and straight built in integration using latest firmware. Power and energy measure and 3500 W supported. Great choice.
I ended up going with Wemo since they are supported through HA and IFTTT. Set up is a little weird with Wemo’s latest update. You will have to assign them a static IP then adjust the configuration.yaml file in order for HA to pick them up. If you already installed the Wemo addin within HA you will have to remove it and restart HA before it picks them up. After that IFTTT gives you a few more intagration options that work well with HA.
