Smart socket (UK) with "plug present" status

Hardware
1

Evening all,

I’m wondering if anyone has come across any UK smart sockets with soft switches that can be disabled, that report whether a plug is inserted or not.

I ask this because I have an 18 month old who is getting smarter by the minute and there are certain double sockets in the house that even if I could put covers over, they wouldn’t last long and I know the switches will get figured out soon enough. Pattern and shape matching is also strong with this one and I’ve already spotted plug getting lined up with socket on more than one occasion.

What I would like to do is have a socket live (e.g. with a speaker/lamp/air freshener/etc… plugged in), and if the plug is removed then soft-switch that socket off until re-enabled in SW (be that app or dashboard). That way it can still be functional, but if strong little hands manage to remove whatever was in there then the socket is off (and a responsible person can be notified to address the issue).

2

Only halfway to what you want, but I have some Zigbee sockets that have child locks which can be switched on and off by HA. When the child lock is on, the manual switch doesn’t work. No power monitoring, though, so they can’t tell whether anything is plugged in.

2 Likes
3

The closest I can think of is:

  • Load sensing - e.g. current / energy monitoring - no use if the device is off.
  • Off-line - e.g. switch plug pulled out, goes off-line, raises alert.

There are larger 2G covers that are for essential loads (think data centres) that looks more like external sockets with physical locks.

Outdoor sockets with a physical cover from Screwfix/ Toolstation are fairly cheap, can be locked to reduce tampering, but look out of place indoors.
https://www.screwfix.com/c/electrical-lighting/outdoor-sockets/cat3360008

Personally, I’d not buy socket covers and spend the cash on new individual RCBOs to replace older ELCBs and RCDs. I grew up with wire link fuses, and a “learning event” without earth leakage detection HURT!

4

+1 vote for the child lock sockets recommended by @jackjourneyman above. You can’t prevent your child from pulling out plugs from the sockets, but at least you can prevent them from switching them off at the switch

5

If only this company didn’t go under, it had a tag you fit to your plug so it knows what was plugged in. Went south a few years back. This is an article someone wrote on fitting the socket at the time

They also had some mechanical device inside them that actually flipped on and off the switch on the front. They had light switches that did the same too