Plugs & Lighting

Plugs and lighting are where a renter should start. Nothing else in the smart-home world gives you this much for so little risk: most of it plugs in or screws in, none of it touches the wiring, and all of it walks out the door with you. If you’ve been nervous about smart-home gear because you don’t own the place, this is the section that shows you how much you can do without changing a thing.

Start with a smart plug. It sits between the wall outlet and a lamp or fan and makes whatever’s plugged into it controllable by app, voice or schedule — no hub, no install, no commitment. From there, smart bulbs screw into the sockets you already have and add color, dimming and schedules to any fixture. Both are as reversible as a device gets: unplug or unscrew, and the apartment is exactly as you found it. The main choice to make is which voice assistant you use, because some plugs and bulbs support Alexa, Google and Apple Home while cheaper ones pick just one.

There is one honest wrinkle with smart bulbs, and we call it out on every page: the wall-switch problem. A smart bulb only listens when it has power, so if a roommate or guest flips the wall switch off, your app and schedules go dark until someone flips it back. Homeowners fix this by replacing the switch — which a renter can’t. The renter fix is the Lutron Aurora, a dial that clamps over your existing toggle switch with no wiring and keeps the bulb powered while giving you a real dimmer. It’s the cleverest thing in here.

The three roundups below cover it. Our best smart plugs ranks the plug picks on ecosystem support and size; best smart lights covers the bulbs plus that no-wiring switch; and motion-sensor lightshandles the dark closets, entries and hallways that don’t have a switch at all. Curious whether any of this is a fire risk? Our honest take is in are smart plugs safe. Every pick carries a live price and our Lease-Safe rating.