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Enhancing Home Automation and Energy Monitoring with Tasmota Smart Plugs

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By Manuel Laggner
4 min read
Enhancing Home Automation and Energy Monitoring with Tasmota Smart Plugs

Smart plugs have become an essential part of modern smart homes, and when paired with open-source firmware like Tasmota, they can be a game-changer for DIY enthusiasts and home automation nerds. In this post, I’ll walk you through what Tasmota is, how you can flash it to smart plugs, and how to leverage them for energy monitoring and automation. You can also directly order a smart plug with Tasmota pre-installed like the NOUS A1T (1).

🔌 What Is Tasmota?

Tasmota is an open-source firmware designed to run on ESP8266- and ESP32-based smart devices. It’s especially popular for smart plugs, switches, and sensors. Tasmota replaces the factory firmware on a smart device, giving you full control over its functionality without relying on cloud services.

Key Benefits of Tasmota:

  • Local control (no need for vendor cloud apps)
  • MQTT support for integration with systems like Home Assistant or Node-RED
  • Web interface for configuration and monitoring
  • Support for energy monitoring chips (like HLW8012, CSE7766)

🛠️ Why Flash Smart Plugs with Tasmota?

Out of the box, many Wi-Fi smart plugs come with proprietary firmware that connects to third-party cloud services. This raises privacy concerns, increases latency, and limits flexibility.

Flashing Tasmota gives you:

  • Privacy and full local control
  • Reliable performance with no dependency on the internet
  • Advanced automation capabilities via MQTT or REST APIs
  • Real-time energy consumption data (if the plug has the right chip)

Many popular smart plugs, such as the Gosund SP111, can be flashed with Tasmota and already include power monitoring chips.

🏠 Home Automation with Tasmota Smart Plugs

Once Tasmota is installed, your smart plug becomes a powerful tool in your home automation setup.

Here are a few practical examples:

  • Schedule Control: Turn off a lamp at sunrise or power down a gaming console after midnight.
  • State Tracking: Track whether a device is on or off to trigger other automations.
  • Remote Control: Switch appliances on or off using MQTT messages or HTTP requests.
  • Presence Simulation: Randomly turn lights on/off while you’re away to simulate presence.

Tasmota integrates seamlessly with platforms like Home Assistant, openHAB, and Domoticz, and can be fully controlled using MQTT, allowing you to build complex automation workflows.

⚡ Energy Monitoring Capabilities

Some smart plugs with power monitoring chips can report:

  • Voltage (V)
  • Current (A)
  • Active Power (W)
  • Total Energy Consumption (kWh)

📍 Why This Matters

  • Device Profiling: Know how much energy each device uses. Is your old fridge a vampire appliance?
  • Automation Based on Power Usage: Detect when your washing machine finishes based on a drop in power draw.
  • Historical Tracking: Log power consumption over time to monitor trends and identify inefficiencies.
  • Cost Estimation: Combine kWh data with your utility rates to estimate monthly usage.

Platforms like Home Assistant make it easy to create dashboards showing real-time and historical energy data.

🧰 Flashing Tasmota to a Smart Plug

Flashing can be done in two ways:

📡 1. OTA Flashing (Over-the-Air)

Some devices support OTA flashing via tools like Tuya-Convert, which requires no disassembly.

🔧 2. Serial Flashing

Involves opening the plug, connecting to the ESP8266 using a USB-to-serial adapter, and flashing Tasmota via esptool.py.

Flashing voids warranty and may damage your device if done incorrectly. Proceed only if you’re confident.

Steps (Serial Example):

  1. Open the plug and identify the RX, TX, GND, and VCC pins.
  2. Connect to USB-to-serial adapter (3.3V only).
  3. Put the device into flash mode.
  4. Use esptool.py or Tasmotizer to upload the firmware.
  5. Connect to the device’s Wi-Fi, then configure it via the web UI.

Once flashed, configure the MQTT broker (like Mosquitto), set up your sensors, and start automating.

🔗 MQTT Integration: The Glue of Home Automation

MQTT is a lightweight messaging protocol that enables devices to communicate in real-time. Tasmota has built-in MQTT support.

🧾 Sample MQTT Topics

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tele/tasmota_plug/SENSOR      # Sensor data like voltage, power, energy
cmnd/tasmota_plug/POWER       # Command to switch on/off
stat/tasmota_plug/POWER       # Status of the plug

With this, your home automation controller can send or receive messages to control devices or trigger automation based on real-time data.

🧩 Tools & Platforms to Pair With Tasmota

Here are a few tools you can combine with Tasmota for an awesome smart home experience:

  • Home Assistant: The go-to open-source automation platform
  • Node-RED: Visual programming for custom logic flows
  • InfluxDB + Grafana: For beautiful data visualizations of energy use
  • Mosquitto: Lightweight MQTT broker
  • ESPHome (alternative to Tasmota): YAML-based config system for ESP-based devices

🧠 Final Thoughts

Tasmota-powered smart plugs are one of the easiest and most effective ways to boost your home automation setup while also gaining insights into energy usage. By flashing your plugs with Tasmota, you’re ditching the cloud, gaining local control, and opening the door to endless automation opportunities.

Whether you’re a privacy-conscious DIYer or a power user wanting better data and control, Tasmota smart plugs are absolutely worth exploring. If you’re new to Tasmota, start with one plug and experiment — you’ll quickly see the potential.

Happy automating!



  1. Affiliate link - if you make a purchase through this link, I may earn a small commission. There are no additional costs for you. Of course, when, where, and how you buy a product is entirely up to you. ↩︎

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