'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?
ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.
When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.
ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form.
The $15 Amazon Smart Plug is a great deal to wrap up Cyber Monday
Thanks to this little smart plug, just $15 lets you control your household devices with your voice through Alexa, as long as they can be plugged in. Priced with a 40% discount, you can now snag this Amazon Smart Plug and start living a little more comfortably.
Though I have several brands of smart plugs around my house, I got my first Amazon smart plug about a year ago during a Prime Day event and use it literally every day. It connects one of my bedroom lamps to power, so we ask our Sonos Era 100 to turn it on and off. I also set up routines on the Alexa app so it automatically switches on each day at dusk and off along with the rest of the main bedroom lamps when we say, "Alexa, good night."
The best thing about adding a smart plug to your home is the ability to use it on dumb devices that you can't or don't want to replace, like fans, lamps, coffee makers, and, yes, holiday lights. You can use this Amazon Smart Plug with your coffee maker and turn it on from your bed, run it automatically at the same time each morning, or ask Alexa to make you a cup of coffee.
The Amazon Smart Plug is an indoor-only device set up to connect to 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi networks, and it works exclusively with Alexa, making it incompatible with other home automation systems. It's the perfect companion to an Echo device in an Alexa home, giving you voice and app control over devices that don't typically allow it.