Suggestions on smartplugs

1

Hi There!

I am after some community insight and thoughts! My wonderful power provider in Australia is increasing my power rates by 50%! I shit you not.

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Now, I have managed my power to some extent over the years but I want to up my game. I basically just want to get better at turning ‘things’ off at the power point when we are not using them/home/asleep. Right now my device list includes:

4x google homes
2x sonos speakers
dish washer
oven
microwave
air con

I have completed some experiments and they all draw just that little bit and over time their will be a RoI (Return on Investment).

Right now, I am using these Aeotec Z-Wave Smart Switch 6 - SmartHome, but I hate them. Over time their ZWave degrades and they stop working. Out of 10 or so I have bought 4 now are not usable and a few I just have on devices (like the fridge) to report power usage becuase you can not send a command to them, they time out and then go dead… but they report just fine (weird and annoying, I know). All of them also have this problem where they go haywire and then start reporting stupid power usage results and I have to reinterview them every night. Like apparently my TV used 10000kwh the other day.

So, the question for you guys is! What GPO’s/SmartPlugs are people using that works and are great? I have a ‘SkyConnect’ so I can ZigBee/Matter (it’ll be my first device using either of those technologies, most of my stuff is ZWave, (I also don’t use hass os, I am just running the Matter Server in Docker so I might have problems there until that is supported)) and, I can do ZWave… Wireless, I don’t care really just after a cost effective solution. I have had the TPLink Tapo p100’s recommended to me since you can get 4 for like fifty bucks at Bunnings apparently but, cloud! GitHub - petretiandrea/home-assistant-tapo-p100: A custom integration to control Tapo devices from home assistant. and I don’t like cloud integrations. I already have a Tuya fan which I hate.

Thoughts? Ideas? suggestions? Hit me.

PS: Yes, I have solar. :slight_smile: Yesterdays energy dashboard:

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2

I’ll start by saying I have no ideas about availability in Oz, but hoping this can give some ideas:

Kasa KP125
Kasa EP25
Shelly 1PM
Aeotec Heavy Duty Smart Switch
Zooz ZEN15
Athom Tasmota US Plug V2

I have all of these plus an IoTaWatt.

1 Like
3

One thing to think about is that the smart plug may use more power than it saves.

I’d start by buying a power measuring device to see what the standby power of devices actually is.

If, say, a Sonos speaker draws 1 w on standby and you want it powered on 18 hours per day then you may not save anything. This is because the smart plug may itself consume 1 w. This means you are consuming and extra 18 w to save 6 w (when the speaker is off over night). (The smart plug is likely to d draw almost no power when it is off - for ZigBee, more for WiFi.)

4

Yeah, ok. Good thought. I never considered it with the Aoetec’s and I def get results with those.

5

Thanks for some of the suggestions, I am going to give these ones a try…

https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-smart-plug-australia-socket-zigbee.html?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20230624032136&SearchText=smart+plug+australia+socket+zigbee&spm=a2g0o.productlist.1000002.0