Found out my smart plugs draw more power than the things I plug into them

I was reading a review on The Wirecutter last night about smart home gadgets, and they had a power draw test for these plugs. Turns out some of the cheap ones use 2 to 3 watts just sitting there doing nothing. My old desk lamp only uses 12 watts when it's on, so that's a big chunk of wasted electricity. Has anyone else looked into this and found good smart plugs that don't eat power like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

harper_owens2mo ago

Did you notice a big jump in your electric bill after you put those in? I had the exact same problem with a couple of cheap wifi plugs I bought on a random Amazon sale. They were pulling almost 4 watts each just sitting there turned off. I swapped them out for some Kasa ones and those only use about 0.5 watts idle. It's a pain when stuff you buy to save energy actually costs you money.

amy9752mo ago

Exactly what harper_owens said about those cheap plugs is spot on. It drives me crazy how these "smart" devices end up being dumb about power usage. I had a similar thing with a wifi outlet strip I got on clearance and it was pulling like 5 watts even when nothing was plugged into it. That adds up over a year for sure. I ended up switching everything over to some Zigbee based plugs that use basically nothing idle and they work great with my hub. Harper_owens is totally right that it's better to spend a few extra bucks upfront than to get tricked by those bargain bin deals that cost you more in the long run.

sanchez.mary10d ago

Oh man, that 5 watts idle is brutal. I had a cheap wifi plug from some no-name brand and it was pulling 3.7 watts even when I had the outlet switched off through the app. I only noticed because I got one of those little energy monitor plugs and started checking everything. It drove me nuts trying to figure out why my power bill seemed higher after I put smart plugs in half my house. I finally swapped all the cheap ones out for some Z-Wave ones I found used on eBay and my idle draw dropped to like 0.3 watts each. It really does add up when you have a dozen of them scattered around.