Emporia Smart Plug review: every part you’d want from a wise plug
MSRP $35.00
“The Emporia Smart Plug is a simple suggestion for all but HomeKit enthusiasts.”
Pros
- Inexpensive
- Highly detailed energy reports
- Easy-to-use smartphone app
Smart plugs won’t be probably the most exciting products so as to add to your connected smart home, but they bring about surprising versatility to your setup. That’s very true of the Emporia Smart Plug, which not only allows you to remotely control anything plugged into it, but in addition gives you a sturdy suite of energy monitoring tools.
The dearth of Apple HomeKit support is a little bit of a letdown, but in the event you’re running a Google or Amazon-powered smart home, there’s little to complain about with Emporia’s offering. Sleek, easy to put in, and with a strong (yet intuitive) smartphone app, Emporia gives you every part you’d want from a wise plug.
Slick design, easy installation
Jon Bitner / Digital Trends
Emporia didn’t cut any corners when designing this inexpensive product. Despite the fact that you possibly can pick up a four-pack for just $35 ($8.75/unit), they’re remarkably sleek for such a budget-minded gadget. The oblong shape looks great plugged into an outlet, and it’s sufficiently small that it doesn’t intrude into the space of its neighboring socket. It’s a bit long — extending barely beyond the sides of my electrical outlet’s faceplate — but that’s a minor criticism for an otherwise good-looking smart plug.
Considering this clocks in at one among the bottom prices in the category, it’s great to see that Emporia didn’t gut features.
When you’ve plugged the device into an outlet, getting it connected to your smart home is straightforward. Just download the associated smartphone app, hook up with your Wi-Fi, and also you’re able to set schedules, remotely control devices, and monitor your energy use, all out of your phone.
Like most smart plugs, the Emporia Smart Plug doesn’t offer much functionality directly on the unit. You’ll get a small, multi-color LED indicator light to let you realize whether it’s powered on or off, and an influence button on the side that allows you to manually control the unit without loading up your phone. The on-unit functionality is totally standard for smart plugs, but considering this clocks in at one among the bottom prices in the category, it’s great to see that Emporia didn’t gut features to succeed in that price tag.
Unprecedented energy tracking
Gaining handheld remote control of non-smart appliances is the fundamental reason you’ll want to select up a wise plug. Setting on/off schedules, remotely powering devices, and gaining voice controls are all belongings you’ll profit from with the Emporia Smart Plug, nevertheless it’s the energy tracking capabilities that really set this aside from other products in the value range. Eve Energy, for instance, offers an analogous lineup of energy monitoring features, but you’ll drop $70 on a two-pack — putting them in a completely different price bracket.
In the event you’re aware of Emporia, those energy monitoring chops shouldn’t come as a surprise. Beyond selling smart plugs, the corporate sells home batteries, EV chargers, and (most significantly) an energy monitoring device that connects on to your electrical panel. That expertise has spilled over into the Emporia Smart Plug, giving the tiny gadget a surprisingly robust suite of energy monitoring capabilities.
The smartphone app can enable you to lower your energy usage by giving suggestions or mechanically adjusting settings.
Using the Emporia smartphone app, you possibly can head over to a bit simply called Graphs. It’s here that you simply’ll give you the chance to see how much energy each outlet is pulling per day, together with an in depth chart of usage for each second your device is online. There’s even an choice to see your overall usage for the 12 months — supplying you with a holistic view of your energy usage.
However the energy-related features don’t end there. Emporia offers one other tab in its smartphone app (Management) that may enable you to lower your energy usage by giving suggestions or mechanically adjusting consumption as your rate changes in the course of the day. In other words, some users might simply pick these up to assist track their energy usage, with the handheld remote control functions coming as an added bonus.
Remarkably easy to make use of
Jon Bitner / Digital Trends
No matter why you decide up the Emporia Smart Plug, its smartphone app makes it easy to maximise its potential. Every connected smart plug is shown on the house screen of your app, letting you dive in and set schedules, enable a timer to show off the device after a specified period of time, or reset its data in the event you’re plugging in a latest device to your smart plug.
In the event you’re monitoring energy use, things are even easier — just click in your smart plug of interest, and also you’ll immediately be greeted with its power usage chart. If you would like to do some elaborate data crunching, Emporia even allows you to export all of your values to a CSV file.
Each voice commands and a built-in power button provide you with ways to make use of the smart plug without your smartphone.
The flexibility to make use of voice commands when synced along with your Google or Amazon ecosystem is one other plus, supplying you with hands-free control of your lights, coffee maker, or other gadgets. So, in the event you’d relatively not fiddle with a smartphone, you should use either voice commands or the built-in button on each smart plug to access a few of its most simple functionality.
Too powerful to pass up
Emporia really left no stone unturned in relation to designing this smart plug. The one downside is the dearth of Apple HomeKit support. But except for that omission, there’s little missing from this package. It will probably handle a continuous load of 10A (with a 15A Max Peak Load for as much as an hour a day), comes with a one-year warranty, offers robust energy monitoring tools, and offers you plenty of how to schedule and power your gadgets remotely.
In the event you need Apple HomeKit, consider picking up the ConnectSense Smart Outlet 2. It’s much larger than the Emporia Smart Plug, but offers lots of the same features as Emporia. You’ll also want to examine our list of the perfect smart plugs of 2022.
But beyond that, most individuals will probably be well-served adding the Emporia Smart Plug to their repertoire.
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