The Smartest Smart Home Upgrade Is This Dumb Device

Whether you’ve spent $50 or a few thousand on smart home gadgetry, it’s a good idea to protect your investment to the best of your ability. For the price of a smart lock or video doorbell, you can buy a single dumb device that will greatly improve your home’s resilience.

Once installed, every device that’s connected to power—including white goods, kitchen appliances, and anything else—will have a much better chance of surviving a dreaded power surge.

Power Surges Could Kill Your Smart Home

You can think of electrical voltage as the “pressure” that pushes the electricity out of the socket. The higher the voltage, the more electricity will flow. In the US, the electricity leaving residential wall outlets measures 120 volts. Outside of the US, in places like the U.K. and Australia, this measures 230 volts.

Every device that you plug into the wall should be designed with your local residential voltage in mind. While many devices are capable of handling a range of voltages (from 100 to 240 volts, for worldwide use), some are not designed to be used outside of their home market. That’s why you shouldn’t plug electronics designed for the 120-volt U.S. system into a British wall outlet without the use of a step-down converter to reduce the voltage.

Too much voltage is bad for your electronics, particularly those that are especially sensitive (like computers, network equipment, and smart home devices). If the voltage isn’t enough to damage the device alone, the additional heat generated by excessive voltage can cause circuitry to melt, motors to burn out, and light bulbs to blow.

A power surge is an event where voltage exceeds the rated load for a short amount of time. They commonly occur during storms as a result of lightning strikes, but also happen following power outages, as a result of repairs or other issues on the electricity grid, or even as a result of power-hungry devices being switched on an off.

The best way to protect your devices against a power surge is to disconnect them from power altogether. While inconvenient, this is easy to do if you’re anticipating a large storm. It’s not so easy to do when the surge is the result of a freak accident, like a transformer blowing up on the street outside.

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The Best Surge Protectors of 2024

Getting the right surge protector for the situation is important. Our buying guide will point you in the right direction.

The second best way is to use a surge protector. These usually take the form of small, plug-in devices that sit between the power outlet and any devices you wish to protect. They’re often built into power banks, with a load rating measured in joules. While they’re a good idea, there’s more you can do to protect your home.

A Surge Protector for Everything

Surge-protecting power banks and adapters only provide limited localized protection. If you want to give your whole home the best chances, you should invest in a whole-home surge protector. While these devices are required in the building code on many new builds, many of you reading this will live in houses that don’t have one fitted. Right now, I do too.

Whole-home surge protectors offer the best chances when a power surge is detected. They work by diverting excess voltage to ground before it can wreak havoc on your electronics. It’s the first line of defense against a power surge, fitted alongside your existing home electrical panel.

The majority of surge events occur inside the home and are caused by electrical faults or the load-switching of large appliances. Small surge protectors can usually handle these small loads. But for larger events, with higher voltages, a whole-home surge protector is far more effective. This makes them a particularly good idea if you live in an area that experiences frequent power problems, storms, and other external events.

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For the best level of protection, a layered approach that includes both types of protectors is best. Your choice of whole-home surge protector is also important, as is getting it installed correctly.

A Cost-Effective Measure

You can buy different surge protectors from stores like Home Depot or on Amazon. These devices have load ratings measured in kiloamps (kA), with 1 kA representing 1,000 amps. Since a lightning strike can carry around 30,000 amps (30 kA), whole-home surge protectors are recommended to handle 50 kA or above.

The higher the rating, the more protection the surge protector will theoretically provide (and the more they cost). Adequate protection also relies on the surge protector being properly installed. Notably, the grounding wire also needs to be up to the task of carrying the excess electricity to ground.

While it’s possible to install these devices yourself, and it’s legal to do so in many places, you’ll arguably have better results by enlisting the services of an electrician. Depending on where you live, it may be illegal to conduct this sort of electrical work yourself.

While shopping for a whole-home surge protector, you shouldn’t pay too much notice to the brand but rather the power load rating. An 80 kA surge protection device can cost around $150 (like this Square D HEPD80 at Home Depot), though prices can vary (here’s a Siemens 65 kA SPD for about $180).

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  Schneider Electric Square D HEPD80
  

  $188 $206 Save
  $18

  A whole-home surge protector that’s rated for 80,000 amps (80 kA) designed to connect via double pole 20A breaker.

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  SIEMENS BOLTSHIELD Surge Protection Device 2-Pole 65kA
  

  $108 $133 Save
  $25

  A SIEMENS whole-home surge protector rated for 65 kA that features an audible alarm and visual indicator when the device needs replacing.

These devices are generally good for years of use, even when they do encounter an external high-voltage power surge. Even so, most of them use indicator lights to signal whether adequate protection is being delivered so you can check them from time to time to make sure they’re still doing their job.

Power Surges Are No Laughing Matter

A whole-home surge protector isn’t a magic bullet, and it can’t protect your home from all forms of electrical damage. But it can go a long way to providing a bit of peace of mind. If you’ve been burned by power surges in the past, it shouldn’t be hard to convince you that the up-front cost is worth it.

A power surge can wipe out a whole home’s worth of expensive equipment. This includes devices that are always plugged in like the HVAC system, water heater, network equipment, TVs, fridges, and all of the smart home devices you have added to your home over the years.

I remember when I was growing up we had a series of power surges that wiped out a whole village’s worth of electrical equipment during a wind event that caused a transformer to malfunction. A neighbor’s TV literally melted, while the cost of replacing devices like fridges and stereos ran into the thousands of dollars.

Even with home insurance, the hassle of having to replace everything requires precious time and energy. And even then, you’ll need to pay an excess of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars (and your premiums might go up too).

Ask yourself how much you would pay to reverse this sort of damage after the fact, and whether it amounts to the cost of buying and installing a whole-home surge protector.

After a surprise extended weather event recently highlighted my current home’s vulnerability, I spent a few days wondering whether I should be using sensitive devices like the TV or HomePod smart speaker.

I’m now investing in a whole-home surge protector for added peace of mind, which is something I should have done a long time ago. I’m not going to throw out my surge-protected power banks either.