Some of the best smart home tech is the stuff you don’t have to think about. My lamps have been connected to smart plugs for a long time now — my living room lights turn on at dusk, go dark around 10PM (or when I tell Alexa goodnight) and complete a similar routine each morning. I haven’t manually twisted a switch-knob or stumbled in the dark for over a year. And if I weren’t continually thinking about smart plugs for this guide, I’d have forgotten about them completely.
But not every plug offers seamless connectivity, and which plug works with which home ecosystem varies, too. Right now, the best plug for just about everyone is the Kasa Mini EP25, but there are other winners, depending on your needs. Based on our testing of around 15 options, these are the best smart plugs you can buy.
Table of contents
Best smart plugs
The best outdoor smart plugs
Most people will likely use outdoor plugs for two things: patio lighting and holiday string lights. The devices are designed for the outdoors with ingress protection rating of IP64 or higher, which means they’re impervious to dust and can handle splashing water from rain and sprinklers. They have a longer Wi-Fi range than indoor plugs, for obvious reasons, and many have dual outlets, with individual control over each one.
Setup is the same as for indoor plugs: you’ll use your phone to help the plug find your Wi-Fi using its companion app. The only tricky part is getting your phone within Bluetooth range of the plug (which it uses to initialize setup) and in Wi-Fi range at the same time. I had to awkwardly stand at a triangulated point in the middle of my driveway to get things communicating properly. Once set up, the plugs will communicate using your router for voice and app control and your phone needn’t be anywhere near the plug.
What to consider when buying a smart plug
Before you buy one, it helps to know how a smart plug works best. They are designed for things that have an on/off switch, making them great for turning lamps into smart lights. If you want a plug-in fan to move some air around before you get home, a smart plug can help. You can load a basic coffee maker with grounds and water the night before and wake up to a fresh pot in the morning. And instead of an air purifier running all day, you could set it to just run when you’re away. But gadgets that needs to be programmed further, or requires a stand-by mode, isn’t ideal. If you want to control built-in lights, you’ll need smart switches, which are more involved than smart plugs as they can involve installation.
Some smart plugs can even monitor how much energy they use and display those figures within their companion app. That might not be much use on its own, as lamps with LED bulbs consume very little energy, but it could help you keep tabs on your overall energy consumption.
Setup and use
Adding a smart plug to your home is relatively simple. You’ll use the manufacturer’s app to initially connect, after which you can add the plug to a compatible smart home ecosystem so you can use voice control and other features. Both the brand’s app and your smart home app will let you name the plug, set schedules and program “routines” which provide automation for multiple smart devices at once. But as you can guess, a manufacturer’s app only lets you control products from that brand. If you want whole-home automation, operating, say, a plug from TP-Link’s Kasa, a bulb from GE’s Cync and a camera from Arlo without switching apps, you’ll need to use a smart home platform, which means you’ll need to consider compatibility.
Compatibility
Smart home devices connect through wireless protocols, often using more than one to communicate with your phone, smart speaker, router and in some cases, one another. The majority of smart plugs use Wi-Fi, but some have recently incorporated Matter, a relatively new wireless standard intended to solve integration issues between different brands and manufacturers, while also improving security and reliability.
More of these smart plugs are coming to market and, for now, most Matter devices work via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a low-power mesh network called Thread. Matter requires a controller that stays at home, like a hub or smart speaker, to manage things when you’re out and about.
As for Bluetooth, most plugs, including all Matter plugs, use the short-range protocol to get the device set up for the first time. Some can continue to run on Bluetooth in the absence of another option, but the connection isn’t as reliable and you won’t be able to control the plug when you’re away from home, or perhaps even just on the other side of the apartment.
Because Matter is relatively new, it may be easier to consider the manufacturer’s system you’d use the most. There are four major “branded” smart home platforms: Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, Apple’s HomeKit and Samsung’s SmartThings. The first two work with the widest range of brands and are compatible with both iOS and Android devices. HomeKit not only limits app access to Apple devices, but it’s also compatible with fewer plugs. You can also turn to open-source software like Home Assistant or go with the larger functionality of IFTTT if you want to, say, have your lights turn off when your Uber arrives. For the purposes of our testing, we stuck with the four big players. Nearly every plug we looked at clearly stated which platforms it works with, both on the packaging and retail product pages.
Of course, there’s no rule that says you have to stick with one home assistant. You might have an Echo Dot in the basement, a HomePod in the living room and a Google Nest Mini in the kitchen, each controlling any compatible devices. My kid has a great time telling Alexa to turn on a light then asking the Google Assistant to turn it back off.
Hubs and smart plugs
All of our top picks recommended here don’t require a hub and connect directly to your home’s Wi-Fi router. That means if you already have wireless internet and a smartphone or tablet, you can quite literally plug and play. The exception is Apple’s HomeKit. If you want to pair up a compatible plug with that platform, you’ll need a HomePod speaker, Apple TV or an iPad that stays in your home to enable remote control when you’re away.
Some smart plugs require a hub regardless of which platform you use. For our guide, we focused on the simplicity (and lower cost) of options that work on their own, but hub-dependent devices may make sense in certain situations. Some companies, like Aqara for example, make a vast range of smart home products, adding automatic shades, window sensors, smart locks and air quality monitors to the more traditional cameras and plugs. If you’re going all-in on one brand and plan to get a plethora of connected devices, a hub can keep your Wi-Fi network from getting too crowded and provide a more seamless setup with reliable connectivity.
Sharing
Once a plug is set up with your platform and voice assistant of choice, anyone can control the plug just by talking. If someone else wants to control things with their phone, things get more complicated. Google makes it easiest, allowing you to invite another person just by tapping the + button within the Home app. Whomever you invite will have full access to your connected devices – including cameras – so this is only for people you trust the most.
HomeKit makes it similarly easy to grant app access to someone else, but as with most things Apple, it only works for other iOS users. Amazon only allows you to share access to your Echo, not your connected home devices.
Many smart plug manufacturers allow you to share control through their app by inviting another person via email. But this only grants access to devices of that brand. Hopefully as Matter expands, multi-admin features will become more widespread.
If you get a new Wi-Fi network
Most people will wirelessly connect their smart plugs to their home’s Wi-Fi router. Matter, Z-Wave, Thread and other smart home protocols can work over local networks, but for most setups, the signals telling your plugs what to do will be dispatched through your router. If you happen to get a new one (like I did when it became clear my very basic gateway could not handle the number of smart home devices being tested) you’ll need to take a few steps to get everything reconnected.
Depending on the brand, the steps may simply involve using the plug’s companion app to update your credentials (network name and password). Or it will require deleting the device in the companion app, doing a factory reset (typically by pressing the onboard button for 10 seconds) and setting up the plug like it's brand new. GE Sync and Emporia plugs allow for a credentials update via their apps, others, like TP-Link Kasa and Meross plugs require deletion and a factory reset to get along with your new network. Amazon’s smart plug updates automatically after updating the associated Echo device.
How we tested the best smart plugs
Before we decided which smart plugs to test, we considered brands Engadget staffers have had the best experiences with, both in review capacity and personally. We also checked out other online reviews. We then looked at factors like price, compatibility and relative popularity. I got ahold of ten indoor smart plugs and four outdoor versions from eight manufacturers.
I set up each one using its companion app, then added it to all compatible smart home platforms. Plugging in a cadre of lamps and string lights, I tested the plugs using an iPhone 11, Galaxy S10e, Echo Dot, HomePod mini and Nest Mini. I accessed the plugs via the apps and through voice commands and controlled them in my home and away from it. I programmed schedules and routines and moved the plugs to different outlets, including ones in the basement to gauge range. For the outdoor devices, I plugged them into an outlet in the garage (approximately 85 feet from my Wi-Fi router) and an outlet attached to the back of the house.
Here’s every smart plug tested before settling on our top picks:
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