Best power strip covers: a four-product category, and only one of them locks

Why this category is four products deep

There are sixty-odd cabinet latches on sale in the United States and something like a dozen credible baby gates. There are four power strip covers. We went looking for more than that, twice, and the extra listings are either unbranded two-packs with no maker behind them or cable tidies with "child proof" typed into the title by a seller rather than claimed by a manufacturer. If a product's own maker will not publish what it fits, it does not go on this page.

That thinness is worth understanding, because it explains the products. A wall outlet is regulated: the National Electrical Code has required tamper-resistant receptacles in new residential construction since its 2008 edition, and the shutters behind the face of a modern outlet only retract when both blades of a plug push in together. That requirement attaches to the receptacles installed in the building. The power strip you plug into one is an appliance you bought, and an ordinary strip is a row of plain unshuttered outlets unless its own listing says otherwise - which almost none do.

So the hazard is real and the market for it is small, and the reason is probably that most parents never think of the strip as an outlet at all. It is behind the sofa, it belongs to the television, and it does not look like the thing on the wall that got the plastic plug. Meanwhile it is at the exact height of a crawling baby, it is in the middle of the floor rather than against a wall, and it has a glowing switch on the end of it.

The practical consequence for this page: do not expect a certified product, because there is not one. Every cover here states no safety standard. Judge them on the lid, the length and the plugs, which is what the ranking below does.

How we ranked these

We do not test products. Every number on this page comes from a manufacturer or named retailer listing, linked on the spec table of each pick, and the scores are editorial judgments compiled from that published data - the method is on how we choose.

For this category we weighted toddler resistance at 30 percent, which is higher than our default, because the failure mode here is not a product that breaks. It is a lid that comes off. Installation truth takes 20 percent and is mostly about published fit: a box whose maker tells you the maximum strip length is a box you can buy without gambling. Value takes 15 percent, one-hand adult use 15, damage and reversibility 10 (nothing here drills anything, so the spread is small) and standards 10, because every single pick scores the same near-zero there and a metric nobody can win on should not decide the ranking.

One score is overridden on this page. The D-Line box is a cable tidy that happens to be good at this job, and its toddler resistance is marked down here relative to our general cord-cover ranking, because a lid with no catch is a different proposition in a room with a one-year-old in it than it is under a desk.

The lid is the whole product

Strip the marketing off these four and you are choosing between three lid mechanisms.

A latched lid. Only the Wappa box has one, and its maker calls it a double lock: two catches that have to be released before the lid lifts. This is the same logic as an in-use outlet box on the wall, and it is the only mechanism here that asks a child to do two things at once. If your child is past the stage of simply not noticing objects - if they have started opening cabinets, pulling plug inserts, climbing - this is the only pick on the page that is really aimed at them.

A friction shell. The Safety 1st cover and the Mommy's Helper cover both close because the two halves grip each other, not because anything latches. For a baby who is crawling and exploring by mouth and hand, a shell that needs a deliberate pull to separate is a genuine barrier. For a determined toddler it is a puzzle with one step in it. The honest way to think about these two is as the cheap, good-enough option for the under-one stage, with an upgrade later if your child turns out to be the kind who works at things.

A resting lid. The D-Line box lid sits on the box. Nothing holds it down. D-Line is straightforward about what the product is - its own page says it makes electrics less accessible to curious pets and infants, which is accurate and is not the same claim as childproof - and we have ranked it here because it is the only thing in the category that physically fits a big surge strip. Buy it for the fit, not for the lid, and know what you are buying.

There is a fourth mechanism worth naming because it is the one people assume exists and does not: a keyed or combination lock. Nothing in this category has one. If you need the strip genuinely secured rather than covered - a medically fragile child, a child who is older and specifically targets it - the honest answer is to move the strip out of the room entirely rather than to buy a better box.

The three measurements that decide it

Returns in this category are almost always about fit, and almost always about one of three numbers. Take them off your own strip before you order. A full walk-through of the job, including what to do with the slack cord afterwards, is on how to babyproof a power strip.

Body length, excluding the cord. The Wappa box states strips up to 11 inches. The Safety 1st shell expands to 13.5. The D-Line Large is 16.5 inches long on the outside, though D-Line publishes no internal dimension, which is a real gap in its listing. A plain six-outlet strip is usually comfortably under 11 inches; a ten or twelve-outlet surge protector is usually over 13.

Height with the plugs in. This is the measurement people forget. The thing that has to fit inside the box is not the strip, it is the strip plus everything plugged into it. A row of ordinary two-prong plugs adds about an inch. A phone charger adds two. A vertical transformer brick standing up out of the strip adds three or four and will stop every lid on this page from closing except the D-Line, which is 5.25 inches tall.

Cord exit width. Count how many cords leave the strip and look at where the box lets them out. The Wappa and the D-Line both have purpose-cut openings; the Safety 1st and the Mommy's Helper covers rely on gaps at the ends. Cords run out through a cut-out keep the lid seated. Cords run over the rim hold the lid open a quarter inch, which is enough for small fingers and is the single most common way one of these fails in a real living room.

The switch problem

Every power strip has a rocker switch, most of them light up, and to a one-year-old a lit rocker switch is the most interesting object within reach. It is also, unlike the outlets, completely safe to press - the worst it does is turn the television off.

The covers split on this. The Wappa box and the D-Line box enclose the switch along with everything else. The Safety 1st cover encloses it. The Mommy's Helper cover deliberately does not: its listed features include convenient access to the on/off switch, which is a sensible choice for a classroom or a clinic, where the product is also sold, and exactly the wrong choice in a toddler's living room.

If the switch is the thing your child goes for, that one line in the feature list should decide your purchase on its own. If the switch is not the issue and the cords are, the Mommy's Helper kit is the only one of the four that ships with ties and labels for them.

Which one for which strip

A standard six-outlet strip behind the sofa, child under two. The Wappa box. It fits, it latches, the cords leave through the sides, and it is the only thing here that asks for two hands.

A long strip, or three strips and a limited budget. The Safety 1st cover, which expands to 13.5 inches and costs about half what the locking box does. Buy one per strip and accept that it is a friction fit.

A surge protector with bricks plugged into it. The D-Line Large. Nothing else closes over an adapter. If you would rather have the lock, the alternative is a short extension lead so the brick sits outside the box and only the strip goes in - that is often the cheaper fix.

A strip with three things plugged into it and three empty outlets. The Mommy's Helper kit, for the four plug inserts, or better: unplug the strip, use the wall outlet directly, and put the strip in a drawer. A strip you do not need is the one piece of babyproofing that costs nothing.

A wall outlet with something permanently plugged into it. Not this page. That is an in-use outlet box, and the ranking for those is on best outlet covers for plugs in use.

What does not work

Plug inserts in the strip. People buy a 50-pack of plug covers and fill the strip's empty outlets with them. It does something, but the inserts in a strip are looser than the ones in a wall because the strip's contacts are lighter, and they leave the plugs, the cords and the switch completely exposed. Why inserts are the weakest option generally is covered in plug inserts vs sliding outlet covers.

Taping the strip to the floor or the wall. It stops the strip moving and does nothing about the outlets, the plugs or the switch. It also makes the plugs harder to seat properly, which is the one genuinely live exposure on a strip: a plug that is not pushed all the way home leaves metal showing.

Hiding it behind furniture. A crawling baby finds the gap behind the sofa within a week of learning to crawl, and the strip is now somewhere you cannot see it. Boxed and visible beats hidden and open.

Buying a box and ignoring the cord. Every one of these products addresses the strip and none of them addresses the loop of slack lead running to the wall, which is a pull hazard for a lamp and a loop hazard for a neck. Wind it up. The cord half of the job is on how to babyproof cords, and the roundup of covers for the runs themselves is best cord covers for babyproofing.

Measure before you click, every time. Three numbers: body length without the cord, total height with the plugs in, and how many cords have to leave the box. Two of the four products here publish a maximum strip length and two do not, and the two that do not are the two most likely to arrive and not fit.

Treat the lock as the price tier, not a feature list item. The locking box costs roughly twice the friction shell. That is the entire difference between the tiers, and whether it is worth it depends on one thing: has your child started working at objects, or do they still just find them? A nine-month-old does not defeat a friction shell. An eighteen-month-old who has learned to pull plug inserts out will.

Ignore "child proof" in a listing title. Nothing in this category is certified to anything, and there is no standard for it to be certified to - unlike gates, which have 16 CFR part 1239 behind them, or cabinet latches, which have ASTM F3492. The honest signal is which mechanism the maker describes. A listing that says "double lock" is telling you something; a listing that says "child proof" without naming a mechanism is not.

Buy one per strip, and count the strips first. Most houses with a crawling baby have two or three: one behind the television, one under a desk, one in the bedroom for the chargers. All three are the same hazard, and the per-unit cost of these is low enough that doing one and ignoring the rest is a false economy.

Reduce before you cover. This is the recommendation that saves the most money and the most risk. Unplug everything that is not in daily use, and see whether the strip is still needed at all. The CPSC's own childproofing list covers outlet covers and plates as one of its twelve devices; it does not list a power strip box, because the assumption is that you do not have six live outlets lying on the floor.

Where this sits in the job. Boxing the power strip is a cheap, mid-list item: well behind anchoring the furniture and gating the stairs, roughly level with the rest of the outlet work. The order to do everything in is on the babyproofing checklist, and the whole-room version of this hub's job is best outlet covers for babyproofing.