Nextriv Control Plugsmart plug with energy metering

What it is for

The Nextriv Control Plug is the fastest way to turn a "dumb" electrical appliance into part of a smart building: just plug it in through this pass-through socket. No electrician, no work in the distribution board, no equipment replacement — a printer, coffee machine, heater, fridge or router gains remote control, schedules and full energy metering. It's a device you buy twice: once for the convenience of remote switching, and again when the first energy report reveals how much the "energy vampires" running after hours actually cost.

Unlike battery-powered sensors, the Control Plug is mains-powered and listens for commands continuously — a "switch off" command from the platform executes almost instantly, not at the next transmission window. That makes it a fully fledged automation component: a schedule cuts appliances off after hours, rules tied to other Nextriv sensors start equipment on demand, and crossing a current-draw threshold triggers an overload alarm before anything overheats.

Safety is taken seriously here: a polycarbonate housing rated UL94 V-0 for flammability, overcurrent protection with a fuse guarding both the connected load and the socket itself, a local-button lock (so nobody "accidentally" switches a disconnected appliance back on), and a power-loss alert for the socket — which in practice is often the cheapest early-warning system for a failed power feed to a cooler full of stock.

There is a third role too: a sub-meter. Voltage, current, active power, power factor and cumulative kWh are reported separately for every connected load. Instead of guessing which appliances cost the most, you see it in the data — from a water dispenser to a single machine on the shop floor.

Usage scenarios

• The office after hours: a schedule switches off printers, coffee machines and standby monitors across the whole floor at 7 p.m. and turns them back on before the team arrives. The monthly report shows in black and white how much standby mode used to cost — and how much it just stopped costing.
• Hotels and distributed sites: a router at a remote location stops responding — the front desk restarts it remotely with a single click, without dispatching a technician. Response time: seconds instead of hours on the road.
• Food service and retail: a refrigerated display case under supervision — a power loss at the socket generates an immediate alert, and the current-draw history reveals a weakening compressor long before failure and lost stock.
• Light manufacturing: per-machine energy metering without touching the distribution board — an energy audit station by station, with kWh data flowing straight into the departmental cost sheet.
• Office space rental and coworking: billing tenants for the actual energy use of their equipment, plus automatic after-hours cut-off in the zones that require it.
• Senior living and care: a kettle or iron that switches off automatically after a set time (delayed switching) — a simple safety mechanism with no change to the resident's habits.

Key features

• Full real-time electrical telemetry: voltage, current, active power, power factor and an energy counter (kWh) — not just on/off, but a complete sub-meter.
• Continuous listening thanks to mains power — remote commands execute almost instantly, enabling real automation, not just reporting.
• Schedules and delayed switching: time-based scenes that run without human involvement.
• Overcurrent protection with an alarm plus a fuse — protecting the load, the installation and the socket itself; the overload alarm is delivered to the platform.
• Power-loss alert for the socket — immediate notice that the circuit has lost power (critical for refrigeration and IT).
• Local-button lock — protection against unauthorised switching in public spaces.
• Group control (multicast): one command switches many sockets at once — an entire floor "off" with a single instruction.
• Configuration via NFC with a tap of your phone; network and power status LED, local on/off button.
• UL94 V-0 polycarbonate housing; the 16 A European variant handles practically any appliance that plugs into a standard socket, heaters included.
• No batteries to replace — powered directly from the socket for its entire service life.

In the Nextriv system

Telemetry from the socket — instantaneous power, current, kWh — appears on Nextriv platform dashboards alongside sensor data: you build KPI tiles, trend charts and device comparisons from nearly 20 widget types. Each metric supports four thresholds (warning and critical min/max), so the rising current draw of an ageing compressor first raises a warning and only later a critical alarm — with notifications via email, SMS, web push, MS Teams, Discord or an audible in-app alarm.

Cumulative kWh per device flows into PDF reports and XLSX/CSV exports — ready-made material for an energy audit or tenant billing. And because the platform also tracks device availability, you'll learn both about a power loss at the socket and about the socket itself going silent.

Typical deployments

• Offices and smart buildings: automatic after-hours cut-off of "energy vampires" and per-device energy metering — more in our smart building solutions.
• Hotels: remote restarts of routers and in-room equipment without a technician visit — see our hospitality solutions.
• Retail and food service: refrigeration supervision with a power-loss alarm before stock thaws — explore our solutions for retail and food service.
• Light industry: an energy audit station by station without touching the distribution board — details in our manufacturing solutions.