Eve Energy 2 Pack - Smart Plug & Power Meter with Built-in Schedules, Switch a Connected lamp or Device on & Off, Voice Control, no Bridge, Bluetooth Low Energy, Apple HomeKit, Bluetooth, Thread

TL/DR: Do they work? Most of the time. Are they easy to program? Sort of. Do I recommend? Yes, with the reservations listed below. The product is sleek and appears to be solidly made. I appreciate the green lighted button on the front that you can use bypass the app when (not if) you need to. The size and shape is also great; big enough to securely hold the plug, but not so big that it gets in the way of using the other outlet. If there was some way to make the plug with the holes on the side, it would be easier to use in tight places like behind furniture. To use it behind a side desk table, I had to cut a 6 x10 inch hole in the back of it. A side plug hole would be much more flexible (and would have saved me from hacking-up a piece of furniture). There are a couple of other things they could have done better. One is placement of the QR code. After plugging it into power, my phone’s camera couldn’t see the code, which was on the other side of the plug. It’s often dark behind furniture and the code is printed in a very light gray color, so it was hard for the phone’s camera to find it. Having the code printed on both sides of the plug would be great. Typing the code in myself wasn’t THAT big of a deal, but then it didn’t connect with my phone after several frustrating tries. So I decided to send them back. However, I tried once more the next day, and it worked. The manufacturer made beautiful, high quality Apple-like packaging, but they followed the habit of many companies nowadays of making the directions only 2-3 pages long with inadequate graphics, and in very faint print. There’s too little info in the booklet or on their website to help explain how to install and connect it, at least for “old people” like me. A few times, as others have noted, the product seems to lose connection with the app too. I don’t know exactly what the problem is, but, given enough time, it’s been able to fix itself (so far). I worry about setting up an automation to work the lights while away on vacation. What if the plug stops working and can’t fix itself? Then the automation wouldn’t work and I wouldn’t even be able to command it remotely. Would the light just stay on, or would it not come on at all? Another issue I have is having two different apps that control the switch - the Eve app and Apple’s HomeKit app. HomeKit has more functionality (potentially at least) because you can program a Siri Shortcut. I found the Eve app nicer though, because their on/off button is a simple toggle. You open the app and push the button once and the switch is either on or off. With the HomeKit app you have to open the app, tap the button for the switch, then move a slider switch up or down. Unless there’s some reason HomeKit has to do it that way, that’s just another step. I’ve exhausted efforts to find a way to make a Siri Shortcut to create a simple toggle switch. Of course, I realize that all I have to do is say: Hey Siri, turn on the Office Desk Lamp, and she does it right away. But, if I say Hey Siri, turn on the “desk light in the office” instead of “office desk lamp”, she says she can’t find it. She doesn’t seem to know that lamp and light CAN be interchangeable terms. She could at least ask for clarification - “did you mean desk LAMP?” Much of this may be construed as whining, but I feel like the product isn’t yet “ready for prime time”. Real consumer testing (not by the “boffins” who made the product) and opinion panels could help bring out products that ARE ready for prime time. Diatribe over.

It works well and communicates with other devices on a Thread network. My only complaint is the manual button to turn it on/off is the little status light on the face of the unit. It definitely was not intuitive that it was the manual button. And it is quite small and not easy to press.

Decided to go with these to replace my Wemo smart plugs that I had for a while. The Wemo were ok when they worked, but eventually they would stop working and you had to unplug them and plug them in again to get them to work again. These are a bit smaller in size than my Wemo plugs and they are much more stable. I haven’t had any problems with them failing to work. The main reason I went Eve is that they have better privacy policy and plus they have the ability to calculate how much electricity is being used on the outlet. That is one of the main reason why I went with Eve. Another reason is that they support the new standard Matter. That way they are more future proof. One thing I wish it had was the ability to automatically turn off after a certain period of time after being turned on. That is what my older Wemo plugs had. That is a nice feature so you can have it turn off after 1 hour of being turned on. That way if someone forgets to turn off a lamp, it will automatically shut off after 1 hour or whatever time you set it for. Another thing that would be nice if they added support for Amazon Alexa. Maybe when Matter support gets flushed out more you might be able to use it with Amazon Alexa also. Another nice feature is that you can control the LED light when it’s turned on. You can have the light on when it’s turn on or you can disable it so it will not stay lit up when it’s on. This is nice if you have in your bedroom and you don’t want a bright LED on at night. I also noticed that even though it says you need to have a Home Hub like a newer Apple TV or Apple HomePod mini, I was still able to access those switch while away from my home. I was able to turn on my lights with my old original AppleTV 4K when away from my home and it worked fine. Overall a nice reliable smart plug that works with HomeKit.

One smart plug failed but no response from Eve support after 1 week. No way tin contact or call them.

It is easy to setup. I already have it for several months and it never disconnect even once. It has been very reliable. Most importantly, it connects directly to HomeKit without the need to create an account or use a non-Apple app (you can choose to use the EVE app but it’s optional).

These plugs function very well, but emit a high pitched noise that has kept me from being able to use them in any spot in my house that I might spend more than a few seconds at a time. I think I can make use of the 2 I bought but I definitely won’t be buying more.

Incorporates thread and you could download free firmware update to incorporate matter. I was interested in only thread and the price was cheaper than buying the newer version which has matter already updated. Save yourself some cash and get this model and update firmware. Response times seems quicker than outlets i have which do not have thread. Replaced W..o V2.0 recently hacked outlets which the company would not update. Go EVE.

There is a lot of information suggesting that Eve Energy plugs with Thread support can be used with Matter (which would let them be used with Google Home or Alexa). However these plugs dont support Matter, and cant be updated to support Matter without a HomeKit hub. Dont make the same mistake I did: if you dont use HomeKit, do not buy these.

The only reason I bought this smart plug is because it has amperage reading. The reading is embedded in their app & not easy to find, but it is there. It would be even better if this plug can use that reading to switch off the plug so that it can be used as overload protection.

I recently measured the following standby power consumption for the HomeKit-only, Thread + Bluetooth Eve Energy Smart Plug & Power Meter using the P3 Kill A Watt model P4400. Off: 0.3 to 0.4 Watts On*: 0.6 Watts *with load, which I measured separately and subtracted to get this result