Elgato Eve Energy vs Incipio CommandKit vs KooGeek Smart Plug – Which HomeKit smart plug is best?

Design

Between the three smart plugs, the largest is the Incipio CommandKit. However, the majority of the bulk is off to the side so it doesn’t block the second outlet completely if used in the lower socket. In fact, Let’s start with the physical design of the plugs. Every one of these plugs will hinder the second outlet if you use it in the top outlet. The iHome and iDevices smart plugs have a smaller footprint allowing for multiple smart plugs to be used in one outlet.

The second thing that we look for is the size of the power button. Now it may seem silly to do so since the purpose of the smart plug is to control power to an accessory remotely but there are instances where it may be quicker to turn off an appliance without using your smartphone.

The button sizes on the KooGeek and Incipio CommandKit plug are similar in size (about the size of your home button on an iPhone). The Elgato Eve Energy has the smallest button out of the grouping. We initially though the unit didn’t even have a button because it was so small.

Functionality

In this section we’ll take a look at the apps for each smart plug, power metering, connectivity and compatibility with other smart home protocols.

As we mentioned above, we really like Elgato’s Eve app. Why? Because it’s easy to use and it allows you to view power consumption over time. Elgato’s app, coupled with the Eve Energy, gives us an accurate look at how much energy is being consumed by the appliance on an hourly basis. This information is handy when you’re using a smart plug with an appliance that turns on when you leave the house. It’s good to know if it’s actually working when you’re gone. We can’t do this with any other smart plug.

KooGeek’s app is quite basic and Incipio’s app crashed when we tried to access certain accessories.

For connectivity, both the KooGeek and CommandKit use the WiFi network whereas the Eve Energy is bluetooth based. This might be handy if you are planning on using a smart plug on an area with bad WiFi. However, unlike the other WiFi accessories, the Eve Energy does respond a little slower.

None of these accessories allow you to access the devices remotely without the use of an iPad or Apple TV. In fact the only one that does is the iHome iSP8. The only product in this grouping that has an Apple Watch app is KooGeek but they might as well not because the Apple Watch app is terrible.

Every smart plug in this comparison allows for power metering but Elgato is the only one that makes it useful (as we mentioned above). We initially thought the KooGeek Plug didn’t track energy consumption but that functionality is buried in their app and was hard to find. KooGeek’s app does plot the energy usage over time but only on a monthly basis. Incipio’s CommandKit app is the least useful when it comes to power metering as all it shows is the current usage, nothing over time.

When it comes to compatibility with other smartphone protocols, every one of these plugs only works with HomeKit so if you’re committed to Apple’s smart home protocol, this doesn’t matter. But if you’re looking to use these with Alexa, well, you’re out of luck. In general, higher rated plugs in our comparison tool will have better compatibility with other smart home protocols.