homeassistant

Does anyone have experience with any Eve devices? Eve has some smart plugs that use Matter+Thread.

https://www.evehome.com/en-us/eve-energy

[US] ThirdReality SmartPlug Gen2. It's ZigBee 3.0, has power monitoring, has a power button, are UL/ETL certified, and 3reality is part of the works with HomeAssistant program so firmware updates are really easy. It's also cheap enough at $10. They work as great repeaters and have noticeably improved my ZigBee network.

https://cloudfree.shop/product/sonoff-s31/

https://buttplug.io/

My personal anecdote:

Z-wave is king. ZigBee is a far second place and WiFi / Bluetooth are a last resort.

I'm a huge fan of Zooz products having tested many other brands and been disappointed.

My biggest failure rate has been with Shelly products. Sonoff is alright but have also had issues here and there. I've yet to have any issues with my Zooz switches and smart plugs and I have close to 50 of them.

Bunch of different zigbee ones. Zigbee-only means they're guaranteed to be local and I've had no issues with my Deconz-based zigbee network for many years.

I am using Third Reality. It's been great and since they are part of the Works with Home Assistant program, they actually give updates to their device and are committed to not needing an external account on some sort of stupid app.

I'm a Zwave man. Aeotec ones give very high res power consumption tracking so I can automate based on patterns in usage (can detect when my washers/dryers finish, etc). The Fibaro ones are a bit cheaper but not quite as good (but still haven't failed me once).

Still using Insteon. Nothing else is as reliable. Works even if the Wi-Fi router is down. Their hub talks to Home Assistant and that integration has been rock solid. Under the new owners, the hardware is better than ever. But I have 18 year-old light switches and plug-in modules still working flawlessly even after moving them to three different houses.

I have several of these and they have worked super well. (Zigbee)

https://a.co/d/5yUUGRw

https://amzn.to/477zgX1

^This is a really cool Z-Wave one that I use for lighting, as it supports dimming. Works awesome in HA. I have some lights hooked up to it outside for hanging at night, as well as inside, as no-one put ceiling lights in the living room of the house I'm renting. Just make sure your LEDs are dimmable of course. I still haven't found a different dimmable zigbee/zwave smart plug, though I haven't looked after I found that one.

https://amzn.to/48eKvhC

I use those ^ for everything else. Zigbee of course, wifi plugs suck to set up and don't do the mesh thing. Power monitoring opens you up for some super clever automations. I have my Xbox plugged into one, and when the plug notices the Xbox turns on, my IR blaster turns on the TV. I also have my TV plugged into one, so HA knows when the TV is on.

These. Zigbee. The hardware is the same as the Legrand ones.

I have a bunch of different zigbee models, but my overall favorites are the Sengled Zigbee plugs. They have power monitoring, which can be really useful for automations.

For example, my computer monitor makes an annoying high-pitched squeal when in standby mode, so I have it and my PC on separate Sengled smart plugs and if the PC plug is drawing low enough wattage for 10 seconds that I can be sure it's off or asleep, my automation turns off the monitor smart plug, and when the PC plug wattage jumps back above the threshold, the monitor plug gives power to my monitor again.

Obviously that specific use is a bit niche, but the ability to know when not-smart devices are using more or less power and run automations accordingly can be really useful.

There are other brands besides Sengled that have power monitoring, but I've found theirs to be pretty reliable, just make sure you get the zigbee plugs, because they also make wifi plugs that look basically identical to the zigbee model.

[US] I have a z-wave network of Zooz Zen04 power-monitoring plugs and Minoston MP21 non-monitoring plugs. Automatically set themselves up by scanning the little QR code, Haven't had any network drops or device failures in...3(?) years. One Zooz Zen15 high power, monitoring device occasionally (every few weeks) glitches and reports an spurious, instantaneous 5-20 kWh energy consumption

I bought a few cheap ones with Wifi (16A and energy monitoring) from Tasmota's list and flashed them with Tasmota. Works reasonably well. Though I have to say friends had some of these fail over the years.

I have a few Aqara smart socket with power monitoring, and they ask great, but also expensive.

I had a bunch of the old style of IKEA smart sockets without power monitoring. They work just fine, but they are quite clunky...

I recently bought a couple of the new IKEA smart sockets with power monitoring, and they are almost on par with the Aqara ones, but less than half the price.

@firepenny

I’m using a mixture of Sonoff S31ZB (ZigBee) and S31 (WiFi) plugs with #Zigbee2MQTT and #ESPhome respectively.

I like their form-factor and that you can plug two of them into standard wall outlets (I also have older eWeeLink plugs that partially block the other outlet).
The ZigBee plugs are easier to pair with my #ZigBee network but the S31 allow me to measure power usage in #HomeAssistant.

Flashed some plugs with Tasmota.

I'm rewiring my house so have started installing Sonoff ZBMINIR2 on one in certain locations. My outlets are being put in boxes large enough for a pair of double outlets (total of four individual plugs) so making one switched is kinda easy. Just wired it up without any switch at all and stuffed it in the box. Just have to break the tab on the positive side and wire the unswitched outlet as usual. I then get three always on outlets and one zigbee switched outlet, I'm going to create a label for the face plate front to show the switched one and the back side had the breaker and branch location info so it will be easy to figure out later on if needed.

I tested a couple of the ZBMINIR2's switched side and if you bring power and ground through the ZBMINIR2 the switched contacts are only about 6v dc. The only disadvantage I have seen so far is that when a switch is wired up and rapidly turned on and off it goes into pairing mode so kids flipping switches are a bad thing but it's easy enough to pair back up if you have your phone handy when it happens.

I have so many of the AthomTech ones. Cheap, small, come with Esphome or tasmoda pre installed, power monitoring, relay or non relay versions, and no failure so far.

I have some Shelly plugs, some Athom plugs, some Nous A1T (and a Nous A6T for the terrace). The Zigbee plugs I had all were pretty substandard in terms of reporting after running Tasmota for a while. Main issue with the Tasmota ones is that about all of them are based on an ESP32 where the LED can't be programmatically turned off. On the plus side, they double duty as nigh lights.

Ikea and Lidl zigbee work well for me and are reasonably cheap. Ikea's look a little better, but I have only one because it is a pretty recent product.

I've had a bunch of different smart plugs, but as of today I only use the Shelly ones. They never failed me, have hardly any delay, are very configurable (if needed) and I even converted some of my wall plugs to Shelly devices.

I have them (Zigbee smart plugs) all over the house. Mostly for power measurements, but I’m using few to control devices. I also have a few thingies I’ve put behind regular outlets.

@firepenny #shelly , what else?

I've used Aqara smart plugs from the start, which are Zigbee, but I have recently started using Nous A1Z ones, because they are smaller and can handle 16A, where the Aqara ones only handle 10A.

I happened across a shit ton of kasa smart plugs, and don't need the range/mesh that ZigBee provides, so ive just been using them. Been working well, they can be configured locally and can be blocked from internet access by my router