The bottom lineThe plug we'd buy again first. Real energy monitoring, fully local in Home Assistant, and it makes the Zigbee mesh stronger instead of weaker.
What we like
- Reports watts, amps, and volts, which is enough to tell when an appliance is running
- Pairs straight into Home Assistant's ZHA, no vendor app or account
- Mains-powered, so it acts as a Zigbee router and extends your mesh
What we don't
- Chunky body can block the second outlet on some wall plates
Why this is our favorite cheap win
Our washing machine is in a laundry room nobody walks past, so wet clothes used to sit for hours. One of these plugs fixed that. Home Assistant watches the power draw: when the washer has been pulling power and then drops to almost nothing for a few minutes, it’s done, and our phones get a ping.
That’s the whole trick. No smart washer and no cloud. Just a plug that tells you how many watts are flowing.
Setup
- Put Home Assistant’s Zigbee integration (ZHA) into pairing mode.
- Plug it in and hold the button until the light blinks.
- It shows up with a switch plus power, current, and voltage sensors.
Ours took under a minute each. Nothing to download.
The mesh bonus
Zigbee devices that are always plugged in can relay signals for the ones that aren’t. Battery sensors and some bulbs don’t do this. After our mesh fell apart, we learned that a couple of always-on plugs in the right spots matter more than which bulbs you buy.
Who should skip it
If you only want an on/off timer and don’t run a Zigbee hub, a cheap Wi-Fi plug is simpler. If you have Home Assistant, a Hubitat, or any Zigbee hub, get this one.
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