These 6 Smart Plugs are the Best for Monitoring Energy Usage in 2020


Smart plugs are the best and most convenient smart home accessories for controlling devices around your home. Most typically work with both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa and can turn almost any lamp or small appliance into a smart device you can control with your phone or just your voice. We’ve highlighted the smart plugs that go the extra mile and also offer energy monitoring features that let you track how much energy your favorite devices and appliances draw.


Staff Pick

The WeMo Insight Smart Plug is a compact smart plug that lets you control lights or appliances using the Wemo app and control things with Google Assistant or Alexa without needing a hub. From the app, you can monitor the energy usage from the plugged-in appliance in real-time. It has all the safety features you need to keep your family and home safe and is backed by a three-year warranty.

This plug from TopGreener excels at what it does. It’s a little chunkier than others on this list, meaning it will cover both outlets when plugged into a wall. However, it requires no hub for setup — just a 2.4Ghz Wi-Fi connection and the TopGreener app, where you can monitor real-time and historical power consumption data from your connected electronics and set times and schedules to avoid wasting energy.

$16 at Amazon

Samsung’s SmartThings system is a popular choice for building out your dream smart home with different sensors for monitoring all aspects around your home. If you’re bought into this ecosystem already, then you’ll definitely want to invest in more of the smart plugs, which you can then monitor your plugged-in devices via the SmartThings app. You can connect over 200 SmartThings devices to a single hub, so, in theory, every plug-in device in your home can be monitored if you so choose.

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Eufy smart home products are super popular because they’re affordable and designed to be simple to use. This smart plug does offer energy monitoring, but you won’t get a live look at power consumption. Instead, you’ll get reports on daily usage and seven-day trends, which should be good enough for most people. It’s designed to keep the second outlet available and uses the EufyHome app, which you may already use if you own other Eufy products.

This smart plug offers four outlets, with a single “always on” outlet and three that can be individually controlled using the smartphone app or with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. It uses the KMC Smart app for setup and energy monitoring, and, best of all, it’s the most affordable option on our list.

  • $12 at Amazon
  • $26 at Walmart

This two-outlet smart plug from ConnectSense is easy to set up and use, and it features an extra USB port on the side for keeping your phone charged. Using the ConnectSense Smart Home app, you can monitor real-time energy consumption from the things you’ve plugged in and remotely control them using the app or your preferred smart home assistant.

$60 at Amazon

These are your smartest buys for smart plugs

Are you dealing with rising energy costs for your home? Energy monitoring is a great way to test out what devices and appliances in your home are drawing more power while plugged in. By having a better idea of which things around your house are drawing more power, you can make sensible decisions that could end up saving you a ton of money on your power bill.

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Our top recommendation is the WeMo Insight, which is a reliable and compact smart plug with built-in energy monitoring that you can review from the app and track your plug-in devices’ power consumption. There’s also a two-plug bundle available that brings the price per smart plug down to an affordable price.

For a multi-plug option, we’ve got the KMC 4-Outlet Smart Plug, which offers the best value under $20 and the ConnectSense Smart Outlet 2, which certainly looks the best out of all the options and includes an extra USB port on the side.

If you decide you want something simpler, or just want to check out other options, there are plenty of other great smart plugs available.

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