What Can You Plug Into a Smart Plug? What the Load Ratings Say

Every indoor plug and power strip in our library that publishes a figure is rated for 15 amps, and a lamp, a phone charger or a TV sits well inside that. Two things narrow the list from there. The motor rating is often far lower than the headline number on the box, and for anything that heats, the appliance maker’s own instructions decide whether it belongs on a plug at all.

This guide goes through common uses in the order the ratings sort them, using what each maker publishes for the plugs in our smart plug directory.

Lamps, chargers and electronics

These are the everyday uses, and they sit well inside every rating we hold. TP-Link’s per-appliance table for the Tapo P210M lists a TV at 350 W, a computer at 600 W and a charger or power adapter at 200 W, against a 15 A limit.

Lighting has one quirk. Some makers publish a separate, lower limit for certain bulb types. Leviton’s D215R outlet, for example, rates LED and CFL loads at 5 A, a third of its general figure. If you are switching a long run of lights rather than one lamp, look for that line in the specification.

Kitchen appliances and heaters

Appliances that heat use the most power, and TP-Link’s table puts some of them right at the limit. It lists an iron, a kettle or a heater at 15 A and 1,875 W, a toaster at 1,500 W and a coffee maker at 1,200 W. Those figures describe what the outlet can carry. They do not say that any of those appliances belongs on it, and the heaviest of them would run the outlet at its full capacity for as long as they are on.

For anything that heats, the plug’s rating is only half the question. Whether a space heater, a kettle or an iron may be run from a smart plug, a strip or a timer is for that appliance’s maker to say, and our records do not hold those instructions. The appliance’s manual decides, so read it before putting one on any plug.

Anything with a motor or compressor

This is where ratings fall sharply, and where plugs that look identical on the shelf stop being interchangeable.

• IKEA GRILLPLATS: 1,800 W for resistive loads, but IKEA’s own manual caps motor loads at 300 W, which rules out a fridge, a pump or anything with a compressor. The GRILLPLATS is otherwise one of the cheapest plugs we cover, so the motor limit is the thing to check first.
• Kasa HS300 power strip: a one-sixth horsepower motor limit, shared across all six outlets.
• Tapo P210M in-wall outlet: half a horsepower, with TP-Link naming air conditioners as the thing to avoid and warning that frequent switching can damage a compressor. It also says EV charging is not supported.
• Leviton D215R in-wall outlet: three-quarters of a horsepower on its switched outlet, the highest motor rating among the in-wall outlets in our records.

Fans, dehumidifiers, aquarium pumps and fridges all belong in this group. If the maker publishes no motor rating at all, our records leave it unstated, and the absence is worth treating as a reason to ask before buying.

Power strips share one budget

A smart power strip’s rating is a total, not a per-outlet figure. The Kasa HS300 allows 15 A and 1,875 W across all six outlets together. Govee’s H5089 outlet extender allows 1,800 W across its sockets and cuts out on overload, and only two of its eight sockets can be switched at all. Meross’s MSS425FHK strip switches its four AC outlets individually, but its USB ports turn on and off as one group.

So a strip is a good fit for a desk or a media shelf full of small loads. For a heater or any other appliance that heats, its maker’s instructions decide whether a power strip is acceptable at all.

Finding out what something costs to run

Energy monitoring is one of the more useful things a plug can do, and where you can read the numbers depends on the platform as much as on the plug.

• The Eve Energy shows readings in SmartThings and Home Assistant, reaches Apple users only through the Eve app, and shows nothing in Alexa or Google Home.
• The THIRDREALITY Smart Plug Gen2 measures power, but its maker names Home Assistant, SmartThings, Hubitat and its own hub for those readings, not the Echo devices it also works with.
• The HS300 measures each outlet separately. TP-Link documents no route for those readings into Alexa or Google Home, and Home Assistant refreshes the per-outlet figures every 60 seconds.
• The P210M keeps its energy history and bill estimates in the Tapo app rather than in any smart-home platform.
• The Kasa EP25 measures energy and is slim enough to fit two plugs on one duplex outlet.

The US Tapo P125M and the Amazon Smart Plug have no energy monitoring, so if that is the reason you are buying, check the model before the price.

Plugs that do a second job

A plug that is always powered can strengthen a wireless network for the battery devices around it. The THIRDREALITY Gen2 repeats a Zigbee network, and the Eve Energy acts as a router on a Thread network. Both need a hub before they do anything at all: a Zigbee hub for the THIRDREALITY, and a Thread border router plus a Matter controller for the Eve.

The GRILLPLATS can also skip the smart home entirely. IKEA’s manual says it can be paired directly to an IKEA remote or motion sensor, but only one connection method works at a time, so a plug paired that way is not also in your app.

When a plug-in is the wrong shape

If the outlet is somewhere a plug would stick out or get knocked, in-wall smart receptacles replace the outlet itself. Most in our library switch only one half of the duplex, with the other half always on. The P210M switches both halves separately. All of them are hardwired, and TP-Link says the P210M should be installed by a qualified electrician.

For an outlet on the patio or a string of lights on the porch, the ratings and weather limits are different again, and the outdoor smart plug guide covers them. To see which of these plugs fits your platform, run it through the compatibility checker.