Products to help you reduce your CO₂ emissions

Smart Plugs

Smart plugs allow you to automate power switching, making them a really useful tool to support reducing your CO2 emissions. This area of smart automation has also become very competitive, which has both resulted in keen pricing, which is a good thing, but also encouraged a large number of new and unfamiliar brands to enter the market. Selecting a suitable device can therefore seem quite a daunting task at first, however, once some clear criteria are established,  some clear winners emerge.

1. Smartphone app 

All the smart plugs are initially setup and controlled with an app on your smartphone. So the first criteria is that any smart plug must be supported by both android and apple devices. All apps should allow for multiple on/off schedules to be readily established, and also for multiple devices to be grouped together. If you have more than one smart plug, grouping makes it possible to switch several devices simultaneously with only one command or schedule.
Be aware that each manufacturer has their own app, and that these app will almost always only work with their smart plugs. This means that if you buy smart plugs from several different manufacturers, you will need to have just as many different applications on your phone. If you are in this position, one of the ways you can reduce the inconvenience of this is to use one of the home automation platforms. 

2. Integration with home automation platforms

Whilst the smartphone applications are fully capable of controlling the smart plugs by themseleves, the ability for them to be integrated into an overall home automation system can bring some additional conviniences. With an appropriate hub, plugs can be operated with voice commands or linked to other smart devices or services. For example, with geofencing, all the plugs could be switched off when the platform detects that your phone has left the house and devices, such as TVs, games consoles and music systems, can all be turned on and off  with a single voice command, rather than you always having to have your phone with you in order to use the app.  
The two most popular platforms are Amazon's Alexa and Google's Nest. Both offer similar functionality and have hubs that offer additional services as well as being able to free you up from needing your phone to operate any smart devices. 
For those more advanced users, the ability to integrate with IFTTT (If This Then That) will bring additional benefits, and finally for those that want to avoid using the commercial platforms, support within the two most popular open source platforms openHAB and Home Automation will be a requirement too. These platforms can also allow suitable devices to have no contact outside your home network at all, further removing some of the security concerns that some have with the growing number of devices in our homes that can directly connect to the internet. 
Just for completeness, it is worth mentioning the excellent Homekit platform from Apple. It is difficult to recommend this above Alexa and Nest at the time of writing it is a much more restrictive platform,  only supporting voice control through an iOS device (iPhone, iPad), remote automation through Apple TV and only a single smart plug, from Eve Energy, but if you do already have some of these devices, then it is certainly worth considering. 

4. Energy monitoring

A useful feature is the ability to monitor the power being consumed by the attached devices. This allows you to better uderstand how your devices are using energy and helps you to judge better how and when they should be used. Both the instantaneous and historical consumptions should be availble to review.

Product recommendations

Listed below are selected products currently on sale that best fit the above criteria. Two options are presented in each of the main product categories. Whilst all will work well, the recommended option is what I would consider to represent the best available in the category, whilst the lower cost option may sacrifice some features, with the principal differences being highlighted in the descriptions. 

The best smart plug with energy monitoring

Lower cost option

• Meross MSS310
• Apps for both android and iOS
• Works with Alexa, Nest & IFTTT
• Dimensions 67 x 67 x 48 (HxWxD in mm excluding prongs)
• Manual switch on top
• 13A maximum load

The best narrow width smart plug without energy monitoring

Smaller plugs that don't block adjacent sockets

The best smart power strip

A solution for controlling multiple appliances from a single socket

Smart plug for Apple Homekit only