Share House Smart Home: Gear That's Cheap to Split and Easy to Move

For students and share houses, the best smart home devices are plug-in and portable rather than wired in: smart plugs, a smart speaker, and a streaming device for the shared TV. They're cheap to split between housemates, need no drilling, and pack up easily when someone moves out at the end of a lease.

What Makes a Device "Share-House Friendly"?

Share houses have a different set of problems to a family home. Nobody wants to spend serious money on gear tied to a property they might leave in six months, and nobody wants an argument over who paid for what when the lease ends. The devices worth buying in this situation share a few traits. They plug into a standard 240V wall socket and they don't need permission from a landlord or body corporate. They're also cheap enough that losing one in a house move isn't a disaster.

No Fixed Wiring or Drilling

Anything that needs hardwiring — a smart light switch, a wired doorbell, or in-wall dimmer — should be off the table for most renters. These jobs involve the switchboard or fixed wiring, and in Australia that work needs to be done by a licensed electrician under AS/NZS wiring rules. It's also not something you can take with you, which makes it a poor fit for a lease measured in months rather than years. If you're weighing up what's realistic to install without touching the wiring, our guide to smart home devices for renters covers the no-drill options in more detail.

Easy to Divide Costs and Take With You

The other half of the equation is ownership. A $200 hub bought by one housemate becomes awkward when that person moves out and wants it back, or when a new housemate doesn't want to pay into gear they didn't choose. Cheap, single-purpose devices avoid this problem — a smart plug or a streaming stick is easy to label as "mine" and easy to unplug and pack in a box on moving day. For reliable gear that won't break the bank, take a look at our roundup of smart home devices under $50 available in Australia.

Smart Plugs: The Easiest Starting Point

A smart plug is usually the first, and often the only, smart home purchase a share house needs. It sits between the wall outlet and whatever you're already using — a lamp, a fan, a heater, a phone charger. It lets you switch it on or off remotely or on a schedule, without any wiring changes at all.

The TP-Link Tapo P110 Smart Plug with Energy Monitoring is worth a look here because it does more than basic on/off control — it tracks how much power the connected device is using. In a share house where power bills get split between housemates, that's genuinely useful. If one person's gaming setup or space heater is quietly running up the bill, energy monitoring at least makes the conversation about splitting costs a factual one rather than a guessing game. The trade-off is that it's still just one outlet at a time, so if you want to monitor several appliances you'll need several plugs, and that cost adds up across a household. If you are also tracking power draw around a study desk, our guide to smart home gear for a home office covers energy monitoring and practical setup tips.

Smart plugs are also one of the few smart home purchases that make sense to buy individually rather than jointly. Each housemate can grab their own for their room and set it up on their own phone. They can then take it with them without any handover drama.

Voice Control for Common Areas

A smart speaker in the kitchen or lounge room is one of the more genuinely useful shared purchases in a group household. That's mainly because everyone benefits from it and nobody needs exclusive access to use it. Setting timers while cooking, playing music without passing a phone around, or checking the weather before heading out are all things a household speaker handles well.

The Amazon Echo Dot Max Speaker fits this role as an Alexa-based speaker that also manages other smart home devices. If the house later adds smart plugs or other Alexa-compatible gear, it can act as the voice control point for those too. Worth knowing before buying: a shared speaker usually gets linked to one person's Amazon account. So it's worth agreeing upfront on whose account it lives under, and what happens to that account access if they move out.

Turning a Shared TV Into a Smart TV

Not every rental comes with a smart TV, and buying a new TV isn't realistic for most share houses. A streaming device that plugs into an existing TV's HDMI port is the more sensible route, since it adds streaming apps and voice control without replacing anything or touching the TV's own wiring.

The Blaupunkt BPTV10 Android TV Streaming Device is built for exactly this — it adds streaming apps and Google Assistant voice control to a TV that doesn't already have them. For a share house, this is an easy joint purchase because it's inexpensive relative to a new TV. It's also small enough to unplug and take with you, and it doesn't require any changes to the property. The main thing to check before buying is that it will handle the streaming services your household actually uses, since not every app is guaranteed to be available on every device.

Splitting Costs and Managing Shared Devices

Deciding Who Owns What

Before buying anything as a group, it's worth having a quick conversation about ownership. A simple rule that works in a lot of share houses: anything used by one person in their own room is bought and owned by that person. Anything used in common areas (the TV streaming device, the kitchen speaker) is bought jointly. It stays with whoever's name is on the lease longest, or gets sold and split when the house breaks up.

Apps, Accounts and Access When Someone Moves Out

Most smart home devices are tied to a single account, whether that's Amazon, Google, or a manufacturer's own app. Before someone moves out, it's worth checking who has admin access to shared devices and whether that needs to change hands. This is a much smaller headache with simple plug-and-play devices than with a full hub, which is another reason many share houses are better off keeping things simple.

Rental and Strata Considerations

Everything covered here plugs into a standard power point and doesn't touch the property's fixed wiring, which keeps things straightforward from a tenancy perspective. But rental agreements and strata by-laws vary. What's allowed in one property isn't automatically allowed in another. If you're not sure whether a device needs landlord sign-off, it's worth checking your lease or asking your property manager before installing anything, particularly anything that gets fixed to a wall or door. Anything involving new wiring, switchboard changes, or permanent fittings should be discussed with the property owner and carried out by a licensed electrician regardless of who's paying.

Budget Tips for Students

Student budgets and share house budgets tend to reward buying only what actually gets used. A single smart plug for a heater or lamp, a shared speaker for the lounge, and a streaming device for the TV covers most of what a group household actually wants from a smart home. That's without spending on hubs or sensors that mostly matter to people who own their place long-term. If you're shopping around, our comparison of where to buy smart home gear in Australia is a useful starting point for comparing retailers before committing to a purchase. It's also worth thinking ahead to your next share house. Devices that plug in rather than wire in are also the ones most likely to move with you. This principle is covered in more depth in our guide to future-proofing smart home purchases.

Sources

• NSW Government: Making changes to a rental property
• Consumer Affairs Victoria: Renters making changes to the property
• Energy Safe Victoria: Electrical DDIY – Don't do it yourself
• Electrical Safety Office Queensland: Don't do your own electrical work
• NSW Government: Strata renovation rules

Where to buy

Retailers stocking the products in this guide. Prices and stock change often, so check the retailer before you buy. We may earn a commission from these links at no extra cost to you.

• TP-Link Tapo P110 Smart Plug with Energy Monitoring: Check price at Amazon AU · Check price at JB Hi-Fi · Check price at Bunnings
• Amazon Echo Dot Max Speaker: Check price at Amazon AU · Check price at JB Hi-Fi · Check price at The Good Guys
• Blaupunkt BPTV10 Android TV Streaming Device: Check price at JB Hi-Fi · Check price at BCF
• Aeotec Smart Home Hub (SmartThings): Check price at Amazon AU · Check price at eBay AU · Check price at u-buy.com.au