Smart Plugs are plentiful. With so many companies offering solutions to the market, you have what feels like an unlimited list of choices to pick from. Given, not all of them offer a long list of features and a solid price. So it is always nice to run into something a little more affordable at times. Today, we are focusing on the EZVIZ T30 Smart Plug series.
The series is comprised of two different models. The T30-10A, a more compact option that is just a simple smart plug for controlling your devices with ($14.99), and the T30-10B, which is a little larger in profile, but also allows you to monitor the energy consumption of connected devices ($19.99).
Today, we are specifically focusing on the second of the two (the T30-10B) since this is the unit we have been testing out for the last week.
A little bulkier since it has to pack in the required magic to monitor your energy consumption with, the T30-10B plug still fits nicely into your outlet while still allowing full access to the one above or below it. It is as small as it is light in weight, so you won’t have a lot of added weight that could cause the plug to fall out of the outlet.
It features a single button on the front which is used to manually turn the plug on and off with. There is no need to do a magic dance with the button or anything for pairing as it automatically jumps into pairing mode the moment you plug it in for the first time. \
To pair, you have to download the EZVIZ app through either the Android or iPhone app store (depending on your device). It will make you register with an account (just like every other thing in the world) if you don’t already have one before you can continue. Once you have registered or logged in (if you already had an account), you can click on the icon to add a device. Scan the QR code on the plug or the small instructions and the app will then walk you through adding it to your WIFi.
Once you have added it to the app, you are set to go. You can control the power of the outlet, rename the device to something user-friendly and easy to remember, and add it to scenes so that it can interact with other EZVIZ devices on your network.
The EZVIZ app does support Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, so you are able to control the plug using your voice and any speaker with one of these assistants built-in. Because of this, you can also get them to work with other non-EZVIZ devices around your home, assuming they also support one of these digital assistants. You just wouldn’t be able to control both from the EZVIZ app or the other device’s app.
You can view the live information for kWh usage so that you can get an idea of how much the plugged-in device adds to your monthly electricity bill. The Statistics screen allows you to break it down to hours, days, and months to get an even further picture of its usage. The only catch is that you have to do the math yourself. There is nowhere to enter your local kWh cost for it to give you a monetary estimate. So you have the get your local cost and multiply it against whatever kWh total in the app to get your average day, month, or yearly values.
It’s a simple plug with nothing else in the box outside of some micro-sized instructions and regulatory information. You might find the instructions a little difficult to read. However, if you have any experience with smart home products, you will likely never touch them (we didn’t).
Availability is a little dry at the moment as it only seems to be available via B&H (we provided a button below with the score). It is supposed to be available at Walmart as well, however, the product pages for both plugs are currently down. So B&H is your only option for the moment.
Our Conclusion
Again, it is a simple product like any other smart plug. It seems to be quite user-friendly when it comes to pairing it to the app and it is always useful to have energy monitoring support (you can learn a lot from this information when it comes to saving on your bills). Everything seems to work pretty smoothly.
Only two things hurt the score for us. One is that the energy monitoring doesn’t make it easy to turn the values into monetary values. It should be easy to allow the option within settings for a user to add their local kWh cost (if they know it) to their overall account settings for any device that monitors energy usage. This would make it all the more user-friendly. However, many of these companies don’t do this for some reason. The other thing that affected the score was being locked into a proprietary app. So many companies lock you into their own ecosystem. However, good luck finding a singular brand/ecosystem that has EVERYTHING you need for your home. So you are going to wind up with other brands/models for other tasks that may not be able to communicate with these devices. This is what makes solutions like Zigbee so powerful.
At least, it does work with Google and Alexa, which creates a third-party bridge for some of these solutions. It just creates multiple steps and not everything supports this method. So it isn’t a fix-all for getting everything to communicate with everything else.
The price does seem competitive, which is always a good thing to see. We like to see smart plugs with energy monitoring within the $15-$20 range. Which this one just barely falls into. Still a little expensive for some users if they plan on automating as many items throughout the home as possible. However, it is still competitive when comparing it to what is out there.
Overall, we do like this one.
Our Rating | Average Price* $19.99 | ||
*Average price is based on the time this article was published
Additional Images:
Specifications (T30-10B Model):
- Standard IEEE802.11 b/g/n, 2.4 GHz
- Wi-Fi Pairing AP Pairing
- Material High-temperature flame-retardant material
- Working Temperature 0? to 40? (32°F to 104°F)
- Working Humidity 80% or less
- Power Supply AC 125V
- Power Consumption Less than 1 kWh per month
- Dimensions 74 x 38 x 53 mm (2.91 x 1.50 x 2.09 inch)
- Net Weight 55.9 g (1.97 oz)
Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.
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