I bought some IKEA Inspelning smart plugs. I wanted to know if anyone uses them for their washing machine or dishwasher. I read somewhere that it could be dangerous. If so, what’s the safest way to monitor these appliances on HA? Thanks.
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I use one on my washer, no issues observed so far. My washer is an old dumb one, barely peaks over 400 watts.
My choice for safest smart plug for heavy loads is Zooz ZEN-15. It’s a little pricey, and you need to have Z-Wave in your network. But I totally trust them for heavy loads.
If the socket is behind the washing machine, make sure there’s enough ventilation - it can get quite humid back there.
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They are dangerous if used incorrectly.
Your plug has specs:
"Input: 220-240 Vac, 50/60 Hz
Max output power: 3680 W / 16 A
Resistive load/ Max 300W motor load"
So for the water heater it’s probably ok. For the motor, you can to verify it. How much is the power draw when motor is spinning but water heating is off?
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motor load is for switching a motor directly, the inductive behavior of coils can cause real heavy peaks in current. Any modern washingmachine has complety seperated controller for steering motor speed and probbably have ‘soft start’ for each time it comes from a stationary phase.
So for measuring there should be no issue. And for switching, i would not recommend turning you washer on/off with it. (too many electrical components that are not designed for that on a regular basis)
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I agree. Turning off the smart plug during spinning cycle would be potentially bad for the plug and for the machine.
And it doesn’t make sense in practice anyway…
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Oldies but goldies 
Conclusion
This project to replace my Z-Wave smart plugs came about because I was frustrated with the intricacies of Z-Wave, disappointed in the stability, accustomed to state reporting errors, and had a hard time justifying the expensive hardware cost.
…
The king is dead, long live the king 
Somewhat offtopic, but I can’t imagine ever switching from zwave to esp/wifi based, in fact I really desire to get as much devices OFF wifi and on to zigbee or zwave.
Now I am absolutely not against esp, just don’t want an ever increasing network of wifi IOT devices dependent on, and outnumbering my wifi network.
I use (separate) energy-monitoring Kasa smart plugs to control my washer (no heater, max load about 400W) and my gas dryer (maximum load about 800W).
I use switches for 2 reasons:
- Calculate energy usage
- Shut off when not in use since they together consume about 12W of power even when off. To do that I use an automation to detect when cycle starts/ends and then shut off after end
these are the data of my dishwasher: targa-lav hosted at ImgBB — ImgBB
I can’t find the label for the washing machine, but the model is “EWSC 61251 W EU N”, and online it says current 10A, voltage 220v. So I’m assuming 2200w.
So connect it to your ikea plug and read the power consumption when it’s spinning.
If you are not willing to switch off the machine during the program, you are good to go in any case.
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