Independent buying guides
For households adding hubs, sensors and smart plugs without a plan. Each guide answers a single question, cites manufacturer and ENERGY STAR figures with the date checked, and shows the formula behind the standby-power calculator.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Only one smart home device has a certified savings figure. Work out the payback on a thermostat, a plug and a speaker before you buy any of them.
Photo: TaurusEmerald · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Count the watts, the subscriptions and the depreciation separately. A 14-device house comes to about $180 a year, and electricity is the smallest line.
Photo: user:Sking · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Setting up
Decide what has to work with the internet down, pick one radio, and put the battery changes on a calendar. A setup order that does not need redoing.
Photo: TaurusEmerald · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Spreads purchase price, consumables and repairs over the years you expect to keep it.
cost per year = (purchase price - expected resale value + consumables per year x years + expected repairs) / years
Annual electricity cost from rated power, hours of use and your own tariff.
annual cost = power (W) / 1000 x hours per day x days per year x price per kWh, plus standby power (W) / 1000 x standby hours x days x price per kWh
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
1
Photo: Smart Home Perfected · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Like-for-like comparisons on the specifications that matter.
0
Photo: TaurusEmerald · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
1
Photo: Authors of the study: Alicia Mora, Adrian Prados, Alberto Mendez, Gonzalo Espinoza, Pavel Gonzalez, Blanca Lopez, Victor Muñoz, Luis Moreno, Santiago Garrido, Ramon Barber · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Getting it working properly the first time.
1
Photo: user:Sking · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the numbers mean in day-to-day use.
0
Photo: Jacklee · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The expensive errors that are easy to avoid.
0
Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
This site earns money from advertising and, where disclosed, from affiliate links. That does not change the order of a comparison or the conclusion of a guide.
Some links on this site can earn us a commission. That does not change which product a guide recommends, and it adds nothing to your price. Advertising is not enabled on this site yet. When it is, ads will be labelled and kept visually separate from the guides.
