Nous A1T.
Simple, with measuring (after manual calibration) of all important parameters, Tasmota, well build where it matters.
this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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I got six of them, Wifi, MQTT, works perfectly
As others have said, be careful with fans if they are large, many of the plugs don’t have a very high wattage rating and are all definitely rated for 15a at max usually, you might consider a smart relay instead (like a Shelly or something).
That said I have switches and plug-in and in-wall relays from Aqara (zigbee) and TP-Link (WiFi) and zooz (zwave) and all are fine and do the job. Not all support power monitoring if that is something that matters to you, it’s not a universal feature.
Cheers mate. It's an inline fan with a max draw of <40W, so I'm hoping the inrush won't be to bad.
Thanks for the feedback on plugs. Great to see people being happy with so many brands!
I bought those IKEA plugs. They work over Zigbee and should work fine with Zigbee2Mqtt. They're white, though. Setup couldn't be easier (enable discovery in whatever Zigbee system you use, factory reset the plug, wait five seconds).
Watch out with fans, though. The IKEA plugs, for instance, do about 3600W of normal load (@230V, for things like lamps and computers), but only 300W of motor load (fans, vacuum cleaners, etc., unless they have modern inverter circuitry). Even if you consider alternatives, make sure they can actually drive your fan. The startup current for an electric motor like that can be massive!
Cheers! Good advice on inrush current as I don’t think it has a soft start built in
@Bronzie I’m partial to the #Meross smart outlets outlets, model mss315 in particular. Zigbee set up is super easy, highly reliable, and you get good energy use data from each one that works out of the box. #HomeAutomation #HomeAssistant
I found this locally, but only in white sadly.
It’s on the short list nonetheless. Thank you!
Dragon makes a good smart plug that allows you to set the vibration intensity using your Apple Watch!
Not the advice I was looking for, but good to know nonetheless !
I have 3 athom.tech US plugs, they are ESPHome and HA picks them right up after they get connected to a network. Only drawback seems to be they cannot join a hidden SSID like my IOT vlan network has.
Sadly I can’t find these locally, but I appreciate the advice!
I would not recommend ThirdReality zigbee smart plugs. Their firmware updates have been buggy far too often. Honestly, the only smart plugs I've been happy with are z-wave ones. Zooz ZEN04-LR and ZEN15-LR (for high current draw applications) plugs have been awesome for me. My hub is PoE, so I can easily stick it centrally in my home.
Appreciate advice on what to stay away from too, so thanks for that!
I have a couple of Matter-over-WiFi (no dongle required) from Meross.
They’ve been fine since the latest firmware when they added power monitoring over Matter (previously it required their app for that as the protocol itself was lacking those sensors).
Cheers mate. On the short list!
I have a Meross power strip that works great for lights, USB charge/power, etc. No complaints and simple interface.
I have 2 strips that are tied to their systems and they keep giving me trouble. The Matter stuff though, has been rock solid and there’s no need to use their app at all.
That title is misunderstandable
I have a tp link p110m that works, but it's matter (through home assistant's matter integration). It works well enough for my "laundry done" routine
Cheers mate! I’ll read up on it. Matter over WiFi is fine, I just don’t have a Thread router yet
I'm using the third reality plug and it works really well although they don't recommend using it with motor things such as air conditioners etc because of the startup. They recommended I find a contactor plug instead of a relay plug in order to run air conditioners and stuff like that with it.
Sadly I can’t find the inrush current on it, but I’m hoping it will be fine. If I burn one, I’ll look to build some sort of soft starter myself.
This hobby has turned into a deep rabbit hole long ago anyways….
Thank you for the advice!
I am running a 550 watt air conditioner on mine and it works. From what I can tell, it seems to take about 2000 watts immediately at startup, which is ~17 amps. The plug I have is rated for 15 amps and it seems to be alright. So far anyway.
Huh, hadnt heard about that. I have been using my third reality energy monitoring smart plugs on two Air Conditioners for over two years lol
Oh really? What is the wattage on your air conditioners? I am running one of the third reality plugs on my air conditioner that takes 550 watts and that's what I emailed them about and they recommended me to not use it. So I'm wondering if you're using more powerful air conditioners than that.
According to them, it's not the operating wattage that's the problem. It's that when the motor starts up initially, it can pull something like two or three thousand watts all at once for a very brief amount of time and then it settles down. I'm in the United States, so my plug is capable of 15 amps at 120 volts, which is 1,800 watts. They said those brief spikes at the start could weld the contacts together in the relay and cause it not to be able to turn off again.
But if you've been using it for two years, and especially if you've been using it for two years on air conditioners that are above 550 watts, that would make me less concerned.
Yup, much higher than 550w. Mine will often settle down to 650 or 700 after getting the room to temperature, but on particularly hot days and when they are just turned on and trying to get the room to the set temperature, they can easily take 1200w. I have never had an issue with any smart outlet I have bought in the past with that either.
I can understand the company not wanting that liability though. A blanket statement is easier than making customers calculate wattage or manage how many high load devices they might have on a power strip with the AC.
Okay, that's really good information to have and I appreciate it because I'm not some sort of idiot and I'm not going to go plugging in tons of high current devices like that. So I know I'm not going to like burn my house down or something.
Before I even bought smart plugs, I heard that some smart plugs were made not great and couldn't handle the load put on them and caught fire. So I was very cognizant of that from the very beginning when choosing my equipment.
Like the first couple of times, I ran the air conditioner on the smart plug. I actually kept an eye on it and kept touching it to make sure that it wasn't getting hot or anything.
they sell 'soft start' hardware to mitigate the initial load but they ain't cheap
+1 Tasmota wifi or shelly
Shelly seems popular and is available in black. Happy wife, happy life, ey…
I have liked the Sonoffs with Tasmota for many years. But recently, they use different chips that make this impossible.
So I ordered my last ones from athom.com, because they sell them preinstalled with Tasmota (or other firmware).
I need to read more up on athom. Seems like a cool store! Cheers
I have a bunch of smart plugs from Athom too, and they're good. Unfortunately I chose those with WiFi back then. Tasmota is fine, and reliable too, but nowadays I prefer ZigBee for most of my home automation.
I have a few of the discontinued old version TRÅDFRI plugs from IKEA too, since it's ZigBee, and one of them makes weird clicking noises sometimes, almost as if the relay is extremely quickly switching on and off for no reason. Perhaps the new IKEA plugs are better quality.
I would recommend Shelly plugs, they have been rock solid
They keep coming up. Must be decent, I reckon. Go for gen.3 or wait for 4?
Cheers!
get the gen3
Sonoff s31 flashed with tasmota if you want WiFi or s31 lite for zigbee. Both have been utterly reliable for me. No cloud nonsense either.
Thank you for the advice! I’ll read up on them!
If you pick a ZigBee device and don't try to power a refrigerator or a washing machine with it, it probably doesn't matter much. Just get some reliable brand, Sonoff, IKEA, something, for wall powered stuff. Battery sensors are fine OEM from AliExpress. I'd advice against anything WiFi that requires a cloud connection, as most of them do, but that is my personal preference.
Yeah Shelly and Meross seem to fit the bill quite well, and can run local only. Leaning towards those two.
Cheers!
While Shelly wifi devices can use their cloud, it's optional. By default cloud is disabled, you can even make them report to your own MQTT server.
I use 2 kinds in my house.
Aqara Smart Plugs. Zigbee based, runs from the ZHA integration, has control and monitoring built in. Only does up to 10A. Well known brand. Nous A1Z Smart Plugs. Same as the Aqara, but smaller, handles up to 16A but the brand is not as known as Aqara.
None of them exists in black as far as I know. I go for the Nous ones going forward, as they are smaller and can handle more power hungry devices.
Cheers mate. Aquara I can find, so I’ll have a look at it!
I'm using BlitzWolf ones and they're pretty reliable so far. Been using them for almost a year, so no long term results yet. Measure Power and turn on/off.
I've had bad experience (malfunctions after a year or two) with old Ikea Tradfri ones and some Sonoff plug.
Cheers! A bit pricier here, but looks to fit the bill
@[email protected] Local Bytes provide a great pre-flashed wi-fi plug that works locally with Home-Assistant. Pre-flashed with Tasmota or Esphome to make life easy.
Interesting! Thanks friend!
Just wanted to +1 this suggestion.
I've come from the old days of soldering wires and flashing firmwares, to using these... great little things and they work well.