Best smart plugs for PC power monitoring
Track your PC's power consumption with Home Assistant-compatible smart plugs - local-only monitoring, no cloud dependencies.
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If you want to monitor how much power your PC draws, smart plugs with energy monitoring are the simplest starting point. You don’t need to open your case or mess with PSU hardware - just plug in and read the watts. What you want is a plug that reports accurate power data locally rather than only through a cloud app.
A Shelly Plug US Gen4 (or the inline PM Mini Gen3 if space is tight) is the pick for most Home Assistant users; Eve Energy if you’re on Thread with a border router already; the HomeWizard Energy Socket for the most accurate data, if you have EU sockets. I haven’t run these plugs myself; the picks rest on the spec sheets and reports from the Home Assistant forums.
What matters for PC monitoring
The main thing is real-time power reporting. Some plugs only track on/off state. Others give you voltage, amperage, and wattage. For PC use, you want wattage at minimum - it’s the most practical metric for tracking energy cost and spotting power spikes.
Response speed matters too. If you want to trigger automations when your PC draws over a certain wattage (like killing phantom power when it sleeps), look for plugs that update readings every few seconds, not every minute.
Also consider local connectivity. Plugs that work over Zigbee or Z-Wave integrate directly with Home Assistant without going through cloud servers. That means faster response and no dependency on internet uptime.
Recommended plugs with power monitoring
Eve Energy
The Eve Energy is a Matter-over-Thread plug with built-in power monitoring. It reports real-time wattage and accumulated energy to Home Assistant via local Thread connectivity. The trade-off is you need a Thread border router. A HomePod mini or a Thread-capable Apple TV 4K is one on its own hardware (the Wi-Fi-only 3rd-gen model has no Thread radio). A USB radio is not: a Connect ZBT-2 stick, or the Connect ZBT-1 it replaced in November 2025 if you already own one, only becomes a border router once you install Home Assistant’s OpenThread Border Router app. If you already have a border router, this is a solid pick. Accuracy is decent for the price.
Shelly Plug US Gen4 or PM Mini
Shelly’s current US plug is the Shelly Plug US Gen4: 15 A / 1800 W, metering voltage, current, power and energy, with Matter-certified firmware out of the box that can be switched to Zigbee by pressing the device button five times. The older Gen2 Shelly Plus Plug US is still a fine plug if you already own one, but it is Wi-Fi and MQTT only with no native Matter. Shelly also sells a Plug S, but that is the European Type-F model and does not fit a US outlet. Either one, or the inline Shelly Plus PM Mini Gen3, works locally with Home Assistant - no hub needed. They report power consumption and integrate via the Shelly integration or MQTT. The PM Mini is smaller if space is tight. The trade-off is they rely on your Wi-Fi network, so ensure your PC setup is on a stable network segment. They support auto-off timers and power thresholds, useful for killing power to peripherals when the PC sleeps.
HomeWizard Energy Socket
The HomeWizard Energy Socket is a Dutch brand plug with accurate power monitoring and local API access. It works with Home Assistant via discovery and reports detailed consumption data. Two trade-offs: it is sold in EU socket form only, with no US or UK plug version, and it is bulkier than other options. If you need the accuracy and want the extra data (voltage, amperage, power factor), it’s worth the space.
TP-Link Kasa KP125M
The TP-Link Kasa Smart Plug Mini KP125M is a Matter-compatible plug with energy monitoring. It’s widely available and affordable. The trade-off is where the energy data lives: TP-Link’s Matter firmware exposes on/off only, so a KP125M paired over Matter arrives in Home Assistant with no power sensors at all. The watts come from the native TP-Link integration instead, which connects to the plug locally rather than through TP-Link’s cloud, but which needs your TP-Link account username and password to authenticate that local access on current firmware.
The Hubitat and HomeKit angle
If you’re on Hubitat, the Hubitat Elevation C-8 has its own Z-Wave radio and works with Z-Wave plugs that report power. If you are buying a Hubitat rather than using one you already own, that means the C-8 Pro: Hubitat stopped making the plain C-8 in March 2026. (The Aeotec Smart Home Hub is a SmartThings hub, not a Hubitat or Home Assistant Z-Wave adapter.) Zooz makes Z-Wave smart plugs that report power locally. For a PC the one to look at is the Zooz ZEN04 800LR Smart Plug, which reports wattage, current, voltage and kWh to your hub over Z-Wave. Its outdoor sibling, the Zooz ZEN05 Outdoor Smart Plug, meters as well on 800-series hardware 2.0 and later, but it is built for landscape and holiday lighting rather than a desk. Both work with Hubitat on its local platform.
For Apple HomeKit users, Eve Energy integrates natively and reports power data to HomeKit. It’s the easiest path if you’re in the Apple ecosystem and want energy tracking without a separate hub.
Practical setup tips
Plug your PC’s power strip into the smart plug if you want to monitor your entire setup at once, or use individual plugs for the PC, monitor, and peripherals separately. Individual monitoring gives you more granular data - you can see how much the monitor draws versus the tower.
In Home Assistant, use the Power entity from your plug to create sensors for daily/weekly/monthly energy. The integration will typically expose a sensor.power entity. From there, you can build a dashboard card or set up automations like “turn off this plug when power drops below 5W for 5 minutes” to kill vampire power.
Watch out for plug placement. Some smart plugs are bulky and may block adjacent outlets on a power strip. The Shelly PM Mini is compact; the HomeWizard Energy Socket is not.
Quick verdict
For most Home Assistant users, a Shelly gives the best balance of local control, power monitoring, and price. Buy the current Shelly Plug US Gen4 if you are buying new, or the inline PM Mini Gen3 if space is tight; the older Shelly Plus Plug US is still fine if you already own one. Any of them run over Wi-Fi with no hub required. If you want Matter/Thread and already have a border router, Eve Energy is the pick. For maximum accuracy and local API access, the HomeWizard Energy Socket delivers, but it is larger and sold only with an EU socket. If the goal is the whole house rather than one desk, see the best energy monitoring for solar homes.