Best Smart Plug Under $50

What $50 buys in this category

Smart plugs are the cheapest useful thing in the smart home, and the gap between the budget tier and the premium tier is almost nothing. A $10 plug and a $30 plug switch the same lamp on at the same time. What actually separates them is four things, and none of them is reliability.

Physical size. This is the single most common regret. A fat smart plug in the top socket of a duplex outlet covers the bottom socket, which means a $12 plug has quietly cost you half an outlet. Slim bodies solve this; measure before you buy if the outlet is behind furniture.

Whether it needs a hub. Wi-Fi plugs connect straight to your router. Zigbee and Z-Wave plugs need a hub, and if you do not already own one, a $15 plug has just become a $75 purchase. Every plug on this page is hub-free.

Energy monitoring. A plug that reports watts tells you what the old chest freezer in the garage actually costs to run. It used to be a premium feature and is now routinely included on sub-$15 plugs, so there is little reason to buy one without it.

Which assistant it answers to. Amazon's own plug works with Alexa and nothing else. Everything else here works with both Alexa and Google Home, and several now speak Matter, which brings Apple Home into range too.

• Buy a multi-pack. The per-plug price roughly halves and you will want a second one within a month.
• Check the body width if the outlet is a duplex you need both halves of.
• Skip anything that requires a hub unless you already own the hub.
• Outdoor use needs an outdoor-rated plug - an indoor plug in a weatherproof box is not the same thing.

What people actually use them for

Worth knowing before you buy, because it changes which plug you want. The three jobs that come up again and again are lamps on a schedule, a space heater or fan you want to switch off from bed, and a coffee maker that has no timer of its own.

The fourth job - and the one that justifies energy monitoring - is auditing. Plug in the second fridge, the gaming PC, the aquarium heater, and read the number. On an old appliance the figure is frequently high enough to pay for a replacement, and you cannot make that decision without the measurement.

What smart plugs are bad at: anything with a physical power switch that resets to off after a power cut, and anything with a motor you should not start remotely. A plug cannot press a button, so an appliance that needs a button press when power returns will not come back on.

How to not waste money here

Do not buy one plug. The per-unit price in a four-pack is roughly half, and the second use case always arrives. This is the single biggest saving available in the category.

Do not pay for a hub. Zigbee and Z-Wave plugs are cheap on paper and expensive in practice unless you already run a hub. Every pick above is Wi-Fi and needs nothing else.

Do not put a space heater on a plug without checking the rating. Smart plugs are typically rated to 15 amps, and a 1500W heater sits close to the limit. Check the plug's stated maximum load against the appliance, and never run a heater through a power strip and a smart plug together.

Do not assume it fixes a dumb appliance. If the device has a mechanical switch that returns to off after a power cut, the plug cannot switch it on. Test by unplugging the appliance, plugging it back in, and seeing whether it starts on its own.

If this is the first smart-home thing you have bought, the same budget-first logic applies across the category - best doorbell camera under $100 and best security camera under $100 are the two other places where the cheap tier is genuinely good enough.

A plug is also the cheapest fix for the one weakness of app-controlled lighting. Put the power brick of a strip from best LED strip lights under $50 on a smart plug and you get a hardware off switch and a schedule that keep working even when the strip's own app does not.

Smart plug or smart outlet?

A smart outlet replaces the receptacle in the wall. It looks better, it does not eat socket space, and it costs more - plus an electrician, unless you are comfortable working in a box you have confirmed is dead.

For nearly everyone starting out, the plug is the right call: it is cheaper, it moves house with you, and it needs no wiring. We work through exactly where the outlet wins in smart plug vs smart outlet.

Renters in particular should not be looking at in-wall outlets at all. A plug is reversible; a receptacle swap is a modification to someone else's property.

The energy-monitoring payoff, honestly

Energy monitoring on a cheap plug is not laboratory-grade. It reads within a few percent, which is plenty for the question most people are asking - is this appliance costing me a lot, or a little?

The appliances worth metering first are the ones that run continuously: a second fridge or freezer, an aquarium, a dehumidifier, a gaming PC left on overnight, and anything with a compressor more than about ten years old.

The ones not worth metering are the ones you already know. LED lamps, phone chargers and a television draw so little that the plug itself is the more interesting purchase.

If a measurement sends you shopping for a replacement, our best dehumidifier under $200 and best air purifier under $100 pages cover the two always-on appliances where a newer unit most often pays for itself.