Are you wanting to find the best uses for smart plugs to make your home smarter?
They’re an inexpensive way to add automation to your home without investing in smart home systems. Smart Plugs can be used to control anything in your home from lights, coffee makers, appliances, or your clocks. They can be programmed to turn on and off at specific times or controlled remotely by a mobile phone application.
With so many different smart plugs on the market, its easy to get confused which are the best. Before you can decide which are the best, you need to figure out what are the best uses for smart plugs.
No worries! We have a comprehensive guide below.
The 4 best uses for Smart Plugs are:
Table of Contents
Home Automation
Smart Plugs are the easiest way to automate your home.
When you automate your home, you are making your own life easier. This automation allows you to control your devices by:
- Voice control
- Smart phone application
- Schedule
Here are some different ways to implement home automation with each.
Voice Control
Smart plugs can be controlled with your voice and a smart speaker like an Amazon Echo (Alexa) or Google Home.
Once you hook up with smart speaker to your smart plug, you can simply ask your smart speaker to turn on your device.
“Hey Alexa, turn on the living room lamp.”
With voice commands, you can set up routines that turn on multiple devices at once. For example, if you created a routine called “Movie Night”, this routine would turn on your TV, surround sound system, and popcorn maker at the same time.
Voice control is the most useful home automation use for smart plugs in my opinion.
Home Integration
One of the best things about smart plugs is that they can integrate with other smart home devices.
If you want to connect your smart plug to your smart thermostat and set it to turn on your air conditioner when the temperature hits a certain level.
Want to get more integrated?
You can connect your smart plug to your smart lights. When you get home, these will turn on automatically.
Energy Savings
Smart Plugs help in ways you don’t even see, and that’s with energy efficiency.
These plugs allow you to schedule when your devices turn on and off based on a specific time schedule. This will allow your devices to only run when it is necessary. You can also turn these devices off so they don’t waste energy in standby mode.
One of the best uses for energy savings in smart plugs is if you have a device in a hard to reach area. This could be a printer or space heater that requires other objects being moved to turn it off or on. With a smart plug, you can turn it on or off with your mobile phone!
Some of the most practical energy savings uses for smart plugs are:
- Schedule your coffee maker to turn on just before you wake up and turn off after your morning cup
- Turn off your TV or gaming console automatically at a specific time to avoid unnecessary energy consumption
By incorporating smart plugs into your home automation system, you can take advantage of these energy-saving strategies and create a more efficient, eco-friendly, living environment.
Convenience
Smart plugs offer a lot of convenience for your daily life. With the ability to control your devices remotely and schedule them to turn on and off automatically, you can make your life easier and more efficient.
Remote Access
One of the best features of smart plugs is the ability to control your devices remotely.
Using an app on your phone, you can turn on or off any device that is plugged into a smart plug. From anywhere in the world. If you forget to turn your lights or devices off before leaving the house, you can do that from your phone.
Pretty cool isn’t it?
Remote access also allows you to monitor your energy usage and turn off devices that are not in use, helping you save money on your electricity bill.
Scheduling
Another great feature of smart plugs is the ability to schedule your devices to turn on and off automatically, based on the time of day.
This is especially useful for devices that you use regularly, such as your coffee maker or lights. You can set them to turn on at a specific time every day, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to turn them on or off.
Scheduling also allows you to create a more secure home by making it look like someone is home even when you’re away. You can set your lights to turn on and off at random times, making it look like someone is moving around the house.
Turning lights on from sunset to midnight is my favorite use of a smart plug.
Conclusion
The convenience of smart plugs is undeniable.
With the ability to control your devices remotely and schedule them to turn on and off automatically, you can make your life easier and more efficient.
If you aren’t using smart plugs, you should be.