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It seems like every Smart Plug I see on Amazon (including well-reviewed ones) require me to sign up, giving a lot of device, location, and personal information to a company I don't know or trust (often in an overseas country).

I'd like to control & monitor energy usage using my mobile device (i.e., remotely). I know you can't be 100% secure with any IoT device, but I'd sure feel safer with a device that was sold by a company I know and trust (if only marginally), like Google. Perhaps I'd feel safer with a well-established company that operated within U.S. borders? I know that Google, for instance, is struggling with issues around sharing data, but I also know that they have a lot to lose and are at least making efforts to assure customers that they are protecting their data. And, I do have some Google Home devices.

Is there an "official" Google energy monitoring smart plug that doesn't require signing up with some overseas internet service? If not, I wonder when there will be?

jfkelley
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4 Answers4

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There are plenty of smart plugs, based on ESP8266 chips, which can be flashed with new firmware relatively easily. A popular (open source) firmware that has a lot of users and community support is Tasmota. This firmware is easily integrated to a locally hosted home-automation ecosystem which can be accessed remotely via the internet. The device also will have its own mini web server which can also be accessed remotely if your router is configured properly.

https://templates.blakadder.com/ has a list of some (1012 as of 02 2020) devices that can be flashed with this firmware.

Edit: A careful search (even on amazon) will find some smart switches that are UL listed e.g Sonoff s31.

Community
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FoxSam12
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Electrical expert on diy.se with a public service announcement / context challenge.

Don't buy anything that touches mains power on Amazon

Amazon is a river of cheap Chinese junk. Amazon lets anyone (i.e. The Ebay/Alibaba crowd) sell on their platform. This is called the Amazon Marketplace, and consists of any listing that says "Ships from and sold by XXXXX" or "Sold by XXXXX and Fulfilled by Amazon" in the fine print. The latter earns Prime shipping, even though it's not from Amazon.

Amazon is reasonably responsible with their own stuff, i.e. "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com", but it's intentionally hard to tell the difference.

Every electrical code requires equipment be approved. Approval means by a competent testing lab, and due to treaties and opening of markets, testing labs are now multinational: UL, CSA, BSI, TUV, ETL and a few others. CE is not a testing lab -- a prominent CE means the builder refuses to build to the standards required for a proper mark. The device isn't properly insulated, cheap components are used, wire and path sizes aren't to snuff, the plastic will accelerate flame or make toxic smoke, etc.

CE has some tooth within the EU, but not with anything that ships from Amazon. If you bought it retail at Wickes, or B2B direct from Siemens, then yes, but your question is specifically about untrusted Amazon vendors.

If burning your house down wasn't bad enough, fires are investigated. You may find your fire insurance doesn't pay. Right now, these vendors are using Amazon's dropship-to-Amazon fulfillment to do an end-run around product safety laws. That doesn't make that OK.

I mean look. I use the cheap junk-stream for all sorts of stuff, but it's all low-voltage hobby stuff in metal chassis, that's watched when run. I would certainly never connect it to AC mains. Mains electricity is not to be trifled with.

If you don't trust the company to respect your privacy, don't expect them to respect your safety.

And if you don't see a traditional UL-style listing with a file number, back it goes.

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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Instead of looking to Wi-Fi-connected smart plugs, there are Z-Wave solutions which functionally do about the same thing. You'd need some sort of Z-Wave "hub" to connect to it and collect the running information though. Something like OpenHAB can do this, although I imagine there are finished products that can do it to (although you'd have to look into how "cloud-connected" those products are).

Example: https://www.devolo.co.uk/devolo-home-control-starter-pack (which includes a smart plug, "hub" and a door/window sensor). The plugs are available separately, and presumably you can have lots of them connected to a single hub.

As a side note, it seems the general trend in "IoT" is to cloud-connect pretty much everything via Wi-Fi. It's a very convenient choice, but can affect privacy and security. If you want to do anything "private", you will have to run the "cloud server" yourself in some form or other. In practice, that means some sort of "hub" device on your network. As I say, having a hub doesn't mean you're guaranteed privacy or security, but at least it's possible that way.

Helmar
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Ralph Bolton
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If you want a US-based smart plug/switch company why don't you go for Wemo switches/plugs, a subsidiary of Belkin.

You can also make your own smart plugs then there will be no issue of privacy and security. You can customize as you want.

You can create it using a simple AC outlet of your choice, ESP-12, Hi-Link 240AC to 3.3V DC, 3.3V relay and some wires.

Please refer to this answer of mine.

Lucifer
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