Power Points

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A smart plug is the cheapest useful accessory you can buy, and the one most worth owning first. It turns any appliance with a mechanical switch into something Apple Home can schedule: a lamp, a fan, a Christmas tree, an electric blanket, the coffee machine.

It is also the accessory people are most often disappointed by, for one reason.

What a smart plug can and cannot do

It can cut and restore power on a schedule, in a scene, or from an automation, and — on the better ones — tell you how much electricity passed through it.

It cannot press a button. A plug switches the socket; it does not operate the appliance. Anything with a soft-touch power button, a standby mode or a microprocessor will come back off, or come back into standby, when power returns. A modern television, a games console, most air conditioners and nearly every “smart” appliance will not switch on because you gave it electricity.

The test is simple: if it works with a mechanical wall timer, it works with a smart plug. Fans, lamps, heaters, pumps, older kettles. If the appliance needs you to press anything after the power comes on, choose a different approach.

The plugs

Sixty-six products are listed here and only a handful have a verified Amazon UK listing. The category is full of American outlets, Chinese brands that never reached this market, and continental socket formats. The ones below are what survived checking.

The three-outlet option: Eve Energy Strip

The Eve Energy Strip gives you three independently switchable outlets plus consumption metering, with surge and overcurrent protection built in. Three accessories in one plug socket, which matters when the alternative is three chunky plugs fighting over a double socket.

Check price on Amazon UK

Four outlets over Matter: Tapo P304M

The Tapo Smart Wi-Fi Power Strip is the P304M — four outlets, individually switched, joining Apple Home over Matter rather than through a TP-Link bridge. It is the cheapest way to get four accessories out of one socket.

Check price on Amazon UK

Be careful across the Tapo range: most Tapo plugs are Alexa and Google devices and are not HomeKit accessories at all. Only the Matter models qualify, and the model number is the only reliable way to tell. We removed the buy link from the Tapo Mini in this directory for exactly that reason — the listing under that name is the P100, which does not support Apple Home.

Built into the wall: Legrand Céliane with Netatmo

Legrand Céliane with Netatmo is a connected socket rather than a plug that goes into one — a proper wall installation, in a range designed to look like part of the house instead of an accessory bolted to it. Continental format and an electrician’s job.

Check price on Amazon UK

The standard recommendation, without a link: Eve Energy

The Eve Energy is the smart plug most people in the Apple world are pointed at: Thread, no bridge, no account, and accurate consumption metering. It is the one we would recommend on merit.

We have no buy link for it. The Amazon UK listing under that name resolves to the Eve Energy Outlet, a different product — an in-wall outlet rather than the plug-in unit — so buy it from Eve or a UK Apple reseller and check the picture shows a plug.

What to check before you buy

Physical size against a UK double socket. This is the practical failure and nobody mentions it. A chunky smart plug in one half of a double socket blocks the other half, and behind furniture it may not fit at all. Look at the depth and the width before the specification.

Whether you need energy monitoring. A plug that measures consumption tells you what the tumble dryer actually costs, which is genuinely useful once and then becomes a number you never look at. It is worth the premium on two or three appliances, not on eight.

Thread, Matter or Wi-Fi. Thread and Matter plugs are mains powered, so they strengthen the mesh for every battery accessory nearby rather than just consuming it. That is a real reason to prefer them beyond the plug itself. Wi-Fi plugs work and use a Wi-Fi slot each, which adds up at a dozen devices.

The load rating, honestly. UK sockets are 13 A and a heater will use most of it. Check the plug’s rating against the appliance rather than assuming, and be especially careful with anything that heats.

What happens after a power cut. A good plug restores its previous state. A bad one comes back off, and every lamp in the house is dark after a brief outage.

Outdoor rating, if it is going outside. Christmas lights and garden pumps are the obvious use and an indoor plug in a plastic bag is not a solution.

A home hub. Schedules and automations need a HomePod or an Apple TV at home. Switching a plug from your phone in the same room does not.

The full list of HomeKit-compatible smart plugs, sockets and power strips in the directory is below.