The 4 best energy-monitoring smart plugs to help lower your bills

Eve’s energy-monitoring smart plug is one of the most feature-rich plugs we’ve tested. Not only is it wonderfully simple to set up, because it uses Bluetooth and Thread to connect to your home network, the energy monitoring insights you get from the plug are incredibly detailed – the most detailed out of the energy-monitoring plugs we’ve tested.

We were able to monitor the power usage of our appliances by day, week and month. The app even let us set our electricity cost in kWh and view our projected cost. Eve Energy says the reliability and accuracy of the energy-monitoring feature was approved by the German consumer watchdog Stiftung Warentest with a “good” rating, so we know we’re getting accurate energy consumption figures.

Setting schedules and timers was a doddle in the Eve Energy app, and it connected seamlessly with the Apple HomeKit app, making automations quick to configure. The biggest downside is that it’s a fairly bulky smart plug – the biggest on the list – and sometimes blocks neighbouring plug sockets, if they’re too close together.

Until December 2022, Eve Energy’s smart home tech ran exclusively on Apple’s HomeKit standard, but the company became one of the first to move over to Matter, meaning it’ll become easier to connect to other Matter-compatible platforms, including Google Home and Amazon Alexa.

That said, for now, it’s still easier to set up the Eve Energy smart plug with an iPhone and HomeKit just by scanning the code on the box, rather than entering in a wifi password. You do a need a HomePod or an Apple TV if you want to control the plug from outside your home, however.

For less than £10, TP-Link’s Tapo P110 energy-monitoring smart plug is one of the best little gadgets you can buy. It’s a nice compact plug that doesn’t get in the way of other devices, and, thanks to a recent update, the insights you get about your energy consumption are even richer than before.

The new update brought projected costs to the app, enabling us to enter in the cost of electricity per kWh and see trends based in real-time and by day, month and year, helping us understand our phantom appliances. The app isn’t the best-looking thing in the world and feels a little outdated, but it does the job. We’re able to set up schedules, timers and put it into “away mode” when we leave the house or go on holiday.

The improved energy-consumption monitoring really does elevate the smart plug a notch above some of its competitors, and it’s a steal for just under £10. It also works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, so you can use your smart speaker to turn on the plug (or lights, if the plug is connected to a lamp). The only issue is it isn’t Matter, Thread or IFTTT compatible, so we could only set up automations through the Tapo app.

Wiz is best known for creating smart lights, but the company also sells a smart plug with an energy-monitoring feature. While it’s nice that Wiz has an energy-monitoring smart plug, it’s a little clunky to use in the Wiz app.

That’s because of Wiz’s roots. The Wiz app is clearly aimed at smart-light users, rather than smart-plug users. As soon as you set up the plug inside the app, it prompts you to “add an icon for your light”, “give your light a name” and control the plug as if it were a light – with options for warm light or daylight, for instance. The app doesn’t recognise you’re setting up a smart plug, and just assumes it’s a smart light.

The energy-consumption feature is also tucked away in the settings tab, and we couldn’t quite figure out where to find it without a bit of digging around. While it doesn’t have a cost-projection feature like Eve or Tapo, it does provide you with your live energy consumption in kWh, as well as historical trends by hour, day and week.

One neat feature we did like was that it shows you a breakdown by room, so if you have an appliance plugged into multiple Wiz smart plugs, you’ll be able to see how much each room is using, rather than just each appliance. If you do own Wiz smart lights, you can also set up automations inside the app, plus you’ve got a schedule feature too.

It is slightly more expensive than the Tapo P110, but it works with a host of integrations, including Siri, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, IFTTT and SmartThings.

Humax isn’t a brand you usually associate with smart plugs, but the set-top box manufacturer is one of the few companies that actually makes one with built-in energy monitoring, surprisingly enough, and it’s the best one in terms of design.

That’s because Humax’s wifi smart plug is round instead of square – a revelation – meaning you can actually plug other devices adjacent to the smart plug, without it getting in the way.

It works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant but, more importantly, it also works with the Smart Life platform – which is basically the precursor to Matter, enabling you to connect your smart-home products on one platform, without having to hop over to other apps. Energy monitoring will have to be done inside the Humax app, however.

The energy monitoring is fairly basic, breaking down energy consumption by day and month, but you can’t add your supplier’s energy costs into the app for more detailed data. Still, it does the job for monitoring general energy usage and trends. You can set basic schedules and automations within the app, as well as through the Smart Life platform. Plus, it’s relatively inexpensive.