Dehumidifiers and smart plugs

[Adam Levy]

Hi everyone.  I closed on my 2d property last month and am having work done in the basement.  I'm not going to buy the $2k industrial dehumidifier my contractor is pushing, so wondering if anyone has a model with a pump that can be commonly found (Home Depot/Lowe's) that they strongly do or don't recommend?  I'm told many units with built in pumps fail within a couple years so just hoping to find the most reliable one I can.  

Separately: I'd love to put this on a smart plug* but the tenant doesn't have wifi for me to connect to.  I'm not ordering a wifi connection just for this so if anyone has a creative answer I'd love to hear it.  

*I want to make sure it's being run for appropriate amounts of time.

Thanks!

[Andrew B.]

I'm really confused on what the smart plug is for. The humidifier should have a built in humidistat, which will turn the unit on and off when the humidity changes.