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I have at least 4 smart plugs in use, and they are:
1. hooked to my aquarium pump. I say "Alexa fish off" and it turns pump off so when I feed more of the food gets eaten. I have it programmed to turn back on after being off for 30min.
2. hooked to a downstairs bathroom febreze diffuser. It only turns off during night and during the weekday when nobody is home. Makes the cartridge last 3x as long
3. hooked to a heating pad under my dogs bed. I just say "Alexa bed on" or "off". We're gone during day, so this gives the dog a nice warm place to sleep. It's programmed to turn off automatically at night.
4. hooked to a heating tape on an semi-exposed house water supply line. When weather report has temp below 30F it turns on. When outside temp is over 35F it turns off.
5. Main family room I have a Kassa smart light switch. We rarely use the switch, just say "alexa lights on" or off. Or "Lights 20" for 20%
6. hooked to a webcam in my crawlspace looking into the sump pump bucket(to make sure sump is working). Everyone once in a while the camera needs to be rebooted... so I use the smart switch to do that. Previously I'd go to breaker box and flip breaker off/on... but that would cut power to a bunch of things like the TV.
When gone on vacation, I use smart plugs and light switches to turn lights on/off at different times.
I have background lights in a few rooms, corners, they go on timers when it gets dark, I have some on the door I come in, so when I come home at night it's not dark, again on timer, so they aren't on all day and all night.
You can also set them up when you are not home, to pretend you are at home.
I have one on my Nespresso, so it goes on when my morning alarm, I come down and the coffee machines is warm, no need to wait.
I have a couple of them on devices that I need to reboot often (like a media player or an old amazon tv that sometimes doesn't respond). I tell alexa to turn it off and on.
I have them on printers, so I don't need to keep printers on at all the times, I just ask alexa to turn the one I need on for me and then print (color on 1st floor, B/W on main floor. It's not just everything close by).
It still has on/off buttons built into it, so even that wouldn't work. $15 isn't a bad price for 2 smart plugs, and it would look much cleaner. I can think of a few things it would be useful for, we have a wax burner that my wife has connected to a smart plug, and it keeps the accent cabinet from going all the way back on the wall.
Oh, and 2 different lights setup for her makeup. I might have just talked myself into one. 😂😂
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from Rooey
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Serious question, what do people use smart plugs for? I use one seasonally for my xmas tree lights but can't really think of another use case for these.
I have at least 4 smart plugs in use, and they are:
1. hooked to my aquarium pump. I say "Alexa fish off" and it turns pump off so when I feed more of the food gets eaten. I have it programmed to turn back on after being off for 30min.
2. hooked to a downstairs bathroom febreze diffuser. It only turns off during night and during the weekday when nobody is home. Makes the cartridge last 3x as long
3. hooked to a heating pad under my dogs bed. I just say "Alexa bed on" or "off". We're gone during day, so this gives the dog a nice warm place to sleep. It's programmed to turn off automatically at night.
4. hooked to a heating tape on an semi-exposed house water supply line. When weather report has temp below 30F it turns on. When outside temp is over 35F it turns off.
5. Main family room I have a Kassa smart light switch. We rarely use the switch, just say "alexa lights on" or off. Or "Lights 20" for 20%
6. hooked to a webcam in my crawlspace looking into the sump pump bucket(to make sure sump is working). Everyone once in a while the camera needs to be rebooted... so I use the smart switch to do that. Previously I'd go to breaker box and flip breaker off/on... but that would cut power to a bunch of things like the TV.
When gone on vacation, I use smart plugs and light switches to turn lights on/off at different times.
Serious question, what do people use smart plugs for? I use one seasonally for my xmas tree lights but can't really think of another use case for these.
I have 2 table lamps and a floor lamp in our living room on smart plugs - when we turn the downstairs hallway lights on from upstairs in the AM using a wall mounted Pico remote, a Home Assistant routine turns on all the living room lamps.
Our old "dumb" washer and dryer are plugged in to energy monitoring smart plugs - a Home Assistant routine monitors energy usage to determine when either appliance turns on or off, and links to an Amazon Alexa using Nabu Kasa to announce on an Echo device when either appliance is done running.
As another poster mentioned, smart plugs can be set in "away" mode for plug in lamps to help randomize on/off after dark to make it appear that someone is home.
But yeah the granddaddy of all smart plug usage is holiday lighting - I store my smart plugs with holiday lights and deploy them when we decorate for the holidays, window candle lights, Christmas tree, outdoor lights etc.
Serious question, what do people use smart plugs for? I use one seasonally for my xmas tree lights but can't really think of another use case for these.
I have several "bulky" smart plugs. I have them to reset security cameras. (If I'm not at home and sometimes it's necessary to reboot a camera.) We use one to turn on the lighted Christmas tree (either by voice or a timer bua Amazon Alexa.) My wife has a wax melter on a table in a corner. It's tough to reach the switch. I use Amazon Alexa to turn it on and off. (We giggle like sophomores when Alexa says 'ok, wax off' when we tell her to turn off the wax melter.) There are a lot of uses for these, but I'm ok with my old school bulky ones because I can move them around if I need. I even have one dedicated to a crockpot that I'm able to control either by voice, timer or remotely. This comes in handy because I can start dinner at say 9 am, when I'm at work at 4 am.
Have had these since they first came out maybe 6 or 7 years ago for the clean look. They work well but it is hard finding things to use for this for since we don't have lamps. Obviously operating the Christmas tree is a big help. Was pretty helpful on our analog crockpot before we changed to digital. Currently use in garage to charge power tools and turn off charger to prevent battery degradation. Used to use on kids tvs to turn off at bedtime.
Serious question, what do people use smart plugs for? I use one seasonally for my xmas tree lights but can't really think of another use case for these.
Cameras. I know cams have a Home/Away set but I don't trust it.
Cams are 100% off when I'm home
Perhaps building norms are different where you reside, but every house I've ever been in have plenty of outlets not wired to a switch. This is an installed "permanent" solution versus the plug-in wall warts.
Which was mentioned as the main difference over simply going with a smart plug...
My point, however, was that if you have the choice of either replacing the active switch or the outlet, the switch is usually the better option.
It still has on/off buttons built into it, so even that wouldn't work. $15 isn't a bad price for 2 smart plugs, and it would look much cleaner. I can think of a few things it would be useful for, we have a wax burner that my wife has connected to a smart plug, and it keeps the accent cabinet from going all the way back on the wall.
Oh, and 2 different lights setup for her makeup. I might have just talked myself into one. 😂😂
The buttons only mitigate any schedule you have running.
If you wanted to be stubborn, you could have schedules that fire every second to turn the plug off between certain hours.
I could use one in our garage, replacing an outlet by the garage door. The low-voltage power supply for the outdoor lights has been running off a scheduled Wemo smart plug, but that's bulky and vulnerable to getting knocked out of the outlet. Having the smarts in the outlet would reduce the bulk of the external smart plug, and retain the other plug in the outlet for normal use or to separately schedule another plugged in item. Alas, no HomeKit support so this isn't a solution for us.
I did mention that this was a cleaner look. Whether that's enough to justify the price and labor is debatable.
As for getting knocked out, there's plenty of multi-outlet smart plugs that have a central screw to keep them in.
I could use one in our garage, replacing an outlet by the garage door. The low-voltage power supply for the outdoor lights has been running off a scheduled Wemo smart plug, but that's bulky and vulnerable to getting knocked out of the outlet. Having the smarts in the outlet would reduce the bulk of the external smart plug, and retain the other plug in the outlet for normal use or to separately schedule another plugged in item. Alas, no HomeKit support so this isn't a solution for us.
While this is not natively supporting HomeKit, you could use homebridge or home assistant to enable HomeKit. It's not as clean but hey, it's an option.
Serious question, what do people use smart plugs for? I use one seasonally for my xmas tree lights but can't really think of another use case for these.
Espresso machine. Turns on 30 mins before I wake up so the machine is ready to go.
Doesn't seem that strange to me. You can wire it anywhere and have an outlet that has a timer or can be switched with smart devices.
We use this for a old dumb space heater. We use with a room temperature sensor and motionsensor and have it turn it on and off on a schedule or as needed if we're in the room, or turn off when we elave the room for extended time and forget to turn it off. It's a clean look and can be integrated into many routines on alexa or other home assistants.
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In for one for my kids lamp outlet, wonder if you can disable the onboard switches? Being able to see the status at least will be a start if she tries to manually turn it back on.
If you use a smarthome hub such as hubitat elevation, you can do endless automations. Such as when she tries to manually turn it on, it can notify you. Set schedules, intervals, etc.. Pair it with motion sensors, contact sensors, temperature sensors to act as triggers.
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1. hooked to my aquarium pump. I say "Alexa fish off" and it turns pump off so when I feed more of the food gets eaten. I have it programmed to turn back on after being off for 30min.
2. hooked to a downstairs bathroom febreze diffuser. It only turns off during night and during the weekday when nobody is home. Makes the cartridge last 3x as long
3. hooked to a heating pad under my dogs bed. I just say "Alexa bed on" or "off". We're gone during day, so this gives the dog a nice warm place to sleep. It's programmed to turn off automatically at night.
4. hooked to a heating tape on an semi-exposed house water supply line. When weather report has temp below 30F it turns on. When outside temp is over 35F it turns off.
5. Main family room I have a Kassa smart light switch. We rarely use the switch, just say "alexa lights on" or off. Or "Lights 20" for 20%
6. hooked to a webcam in my crawlspace looking into the sump pump bucket(to make sure sump is working). Everyone once in a while the camera needs to be rebooted... so I use the smart switch to do that. Previously I'd go to breaker box and flip breaker off/on... but that would cut power to a bunch of things like the TV.
When gone on vacation, I use smart plugs and light switches to turn lights on/off at different times.
Necessary? NOPE! But convienent.
You can also set them up when you are not home, to pretend you are at home.
I have one on my Nespresso, so it goes on when my morning alarm, I come down and the coffee machines is warm, no need to wait.
I have a couple of them on devices that I need to reboot often (like a media player or an old amazon tv that sometimes doesn't respond). I tell alexa to turn it off and on.
I have them on printers, so I don't need to keep printers on at all the times, I just ask alexa to turn the one I need on for me and then print (color on 1st floor, B/W on main floor. It's not just everything close by).
Oh, and 2 different lights setup for her makeup. I might have just talked myself into one. 😂😂
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1. hooked to my aquarium pump. I say "Alexa fish off" and it turns pump off so when I feed more of the food gets eaten. I have it programmed to turn back on after being off for 30min.
2. hooked to a downstairs bathroom febreze diffuser. It only turns off during night and during the weekday when nobody is home. Makes the cartridge last 3x as long
3. hooked to a heating pad under my dogs bed. I just say "Alexa bed on" or "off". We're gone during day, so this gives the dog a nice warm place to sleep. It's programmed to turn off automatically at night.
4. hooked to a heating tape on an semi-exposed house water supply line. When weather report has temp below 30F it turns on. When outside temp is over 35F it turns off.
5. Main family room I have a Kassa smart light switch. We rarely use the switch, just say "alexa lights on" or off. Or "Lights 20" for 20%
6. hooked to a webcam in my crawlspace looking into the sump pump bucket(to make sure sump is working). Everyone once in a while the camera needs to be rebooted... so I use the smart switch to do that. Previously I'd go to breaker box and flip breaker off/on... but that would cut power to a bunch of things like the TV.
When gone on vacation, I use smart plugs and light switches to turn lights on/off at different times.
Necessary? NOPE! But convienent.
Our old "dumb" washer and dryer are plugged in to energy monitoring smart plugs - a Home Assistant routine monitors energy usage to determine when either appliance turns on or off, and links to an Amazon Alexa using Nabu Kasa to announce on an Echo device when either appliance is done running.
As another poster mentioned, smart plugs can be set in "away" mode for plug in lamps to help randomize on/off after dark to make it appear that someone is home.
But yeah the granddaddy of all smart plug usage is holiday lighting - I store my smart plugs with holiday lights and deploy them when we decorate for the holidays, window candle lights, Christmas tree, outdoor lights etc.
Cams are 100% off when I'm home
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My point, however, was that if you have the choice of either replacing the active switch or the outlet, the switch is usually the better option.
Oh, and 2 different lights setup for her makeup. I might have just talked myself into one. 😂😂
If you wanted to be stubborn, you could have schedules that fire every second to turn the plug off between certain hours.
As for getting knocked out, there's plenty of multi-outlet smart plugs that have a central screw to keep them in.
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Join The Conversation
Share your experience with the Slickdeals community
Share information with the community. Please follow our Community Guidelines and be kind!