Lots of things to unpack there.
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what country are you in? (sorry, just noticed you already answered that as being the US)
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do you have a SmartThings/Aeotec hub, and if so, what model?
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assuming you do have a hub and are in North America, then as of this posting, for most people the best for what you are describing, will be either the eve energy, which uses matter over thread, but has a custom SmartThings integration that includes energy monitoring:
Or the aqara Zigbee smart plug, which also has a custom SmartThings integration. (The product description will say it needs an aqara hub, but you can use it directly with a smartthings/Aeotec hub instead)
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Both of these will work out of the box with SmartThings without requiring any custom code and both will appear on the energy dashboard in the SmartThings app. Most other smart plugs will not at this time.
So for energy monitoring, these two would be the “best“ although that’s always subjective. Personally, I would recommend the Eve, as thread is a better transport layer for energy monitoring than either Zigbee or Z wave. Choice is good.
If you don’t have any other matter devices yet, read the FAQ on that:
FAQ: What do I need to add a Matter device to the SmartThings app? Do I need a bridge router device?
Energy monitoring was only very recently added to the matter specification so it is not yet supported in SmartThings for matter devices unless they have custom integrations like Eve does.