Eve’s new outdoor plug can automate your lights and track your energy cost

Following a recent leak, Eve Energy has officially revealed its new outdoor smart plug that’ll let you remotely control appliances, and lights, and even double as a power meter.

Dubbed the Energy Outdoor, much of the information seen on the outlet’s product page was mentioned in our initial report of the leak, but now we’re receiving all the important details. For example, it was already known that other appliances could be controlled through the smart plug via the Matter standard. However, what we didn’t know is you’ll need a smart hub to do so. The same goes for the power meter capabilities. We knew the Eve app could be used to monitor your house’s energy consumption, but didn’t know what that looked like until today.

An image on the outlet’s page reveals the power monitoring feature is a lot more in-depth than we thought. It’ll be under the Rooms tab on the official app. The tool displays how much electricity you’ve consumed in watts, what the “projected consumption” will be in kilowatt-hours, and how much it’ll cost you annually. At the bottom is a table detailing the areas of your house using up the most electricity with a total yield number right above it.

Notable features

Smart home automations are supported too. These can help you save a ton of time by activating or deactivating other smart home gadgets around the house. Appliances can be turned on or off “based on whether someone is leaving or arriving home”. Eve states scenes can be utilized to control multiple devices at once. The light can be turned off and the shades closed “with a single voice command.” 

Our coverage of the leak did get one thing wrong. We predicted the Energy Outdoor would have a resistance rating of IP65, however the outlet isn’t quite so robust. It has a rating of IP44 meaning the device can survive light splashes of water and blasts of dust but it isn’t completely protected.

Other notable features include a protective cover flap, support for multiple smart home platforms like Samsung’s SmartThings, and the ability to set schedules for “outdoor equipment” like pool pumps.

Eve’s Energy Outdoor will go on sale this May for €80 in Germany as well as a “few other EU countries.” A company representative told us there are no immediate plans for a UK or US launch at the moment although they believe it’s only a matter of time until the outlet is made more widely available. If and when it does roll out to other countries, expect a price tag of about $90/£70.

If you’re in the US and want a solution right now, check out TechRadar’s list of the best smart plugs for 2024. 

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