Monoprice Z-Wave Plus Smart Plug and Repeater with 2 USB Ports

Says that the USB ports are only on when the plug is on, but it appears that they are on all of the time. Does anyone have one of these to confirm that or is there a setting to have them follow the plug. Thanks

Do you have this one or this one?

AFAIK, power to the USB ports is z-wave controlled only in the latter.

The latter. It appears that the USB ports are always on though. I have 2 of these and they are both acting the same way. They hooked to the Hubitat wonderfully and operated the main plug well. I guess i’ll make a call tomorrow.

I don't see anything in the manual about a parameter for this setting (or any documentation about this feature at all besides the description on their website, which I guess isn't that unusual).

Interestingly, the Zooz ZEN06 appears similar hardware-wise but likely has different firmware, and their specifications explicitly say the USB ports are not Z-Wave controllable.

Monoprice confirms that the ports are supposed to go along with the main plug. In my case they are not, so I guess they are defective. I'll return them and look for some plugs where the USB ports are controlled by the plug.

I'm not aware of any, but I also didn't know the Monoprice claimed to (it looks exactly like the Zooz that doesn't), so there could very well be something out there. :slight_smile: If you exchange rather than just return the Monoprice, maybe you'll have better luck with the next one. Good to know that they do claim it does actually have this feature.

Zooz has another (the ZEN25 double plug) with USB ports, but the USB port is "read-only"--it will tell you whether it thinks the port is currently charging, but it cant' be controlled. That's the closest thing I've used to something like this where the feature almost worked as intended (it might now, but I stopped using the USB port entirely when early firmware versions sent excessively chatty Z-Wave messages about whether the port was or wasn't being used--several times per second; I think this is fixed now).

Or if you can find one where it isn't explicitly recommended to not use a USB charging adapter connected directly to a regular smart outlet (I've seen this warning on a few products), that could also solve your problem, just with a little more bulk. I'm assuming that's what you're trying to avoid here.

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Thanks. The reason for wanting to control the charging is for a very specific item. I am a long distance runner and I run in the mornings with a rechargeable headlamp that works great except it needs to be taken off the charger when charged. If it stays on the charger long after charging they fail. With that in mind the idea was to plug in the headlamp, push the button and have the hubitat to turn it off after an hour and a half. As you said, I could plug a charger in, but that would defeat the purpose of having the USB ports.

From Monoprice Service

"Upon verifying, the only reason it is staying on is because the Z-Wave Plus has longer battery life. Even if it's not plugged in, it will still work unless you turn the plug off using the Z button below the USB ports."

So I guess it is a smart switch that you have to physically turn off? Not very smart if that is the case.

That's...interesting. But:

Say what? This is a mains-powered device, not a battery-powered device, unless they have a secret, undocumented, unprecedented battery-backup inside the smart plug. I feel like they are just repeating statements that are true about other Z-Wave Plus devices (sensors, etc.) and not really applicable to this one...

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I confirmed that they are saying that it has to be physically turned off and I got this.

"Yes, you would need to turn the plug off manually as it will have the charge to still work even if it is not plugged in an outlet."

I'm going to unplug it when I get home to see if that is true. I think they're just making crap up.

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As expected the USB ports do not stay on if the switch is unplugged. Also they do turn off if you physically turn off the switch. They appear to be on whenever the plug is plugged in and don’t work as advertised or told in the in box instructions. Disappointing