Independent buying guides
For UK households adding smart plugs, sensors or a thermostat without rebuilding the lot. One buying question per guide, sourced figures with check dates, and energy calculators that print the formula they use.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Z-Wave or Thread: how to pick a smart home hub on local control and the published security support period, not on the box.
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
Budget and prices
Standby watts, subscriptions and hardware spread over its life, costed at the Ofgem price cap electricity rate of 26.32p per kWh for October to December 2026.
Photo: user:Sking · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Setting up
Naming, the 2.4 GHz band, hub placement and the security rules in force since 29 April 2024 — set up once so a new router does not cost you an evening.
Photo: Smart Home Perfected · CC BY 2.0 · 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: user:Sking · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Like-for-like comparisons on the specifications that matter.
0
Photo: Jacklee · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
1
Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Getting it working properly the first time.
1
Photo: Smart Home Perfected · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the numbers mean in day-to-day use.
0
Photo: Smart Home Perfected · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The expensive errors that are easy to avoid.
0
Photo: TaurusEmerald · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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.
Advertising is not enabled on this site yet. When it is, ads will be labelled and kept visually separate from the guides.
