PumpSpy WiFi Sump Pump Smart Outlet with Sump Pump Water Level Sensor, 24/7Monitoring & Alerts, Works with any 120V Sump Pump, Has Additional Outlet for Backup System For Sump Pump, White

I’ve had this product for several years now. A sump pump failure during a storm makes you find solutions, and I chose this, as my basin is too small to accommodate a backup pump. Physical installation was a snap. I can say that *when it works* it’s a nice product. I’d get reports on how much it was cycling and when, and I’d also receive power outage alerts which would be helpful. The problem is - this unit would go offline. Frequently. We occasionally get power drops where I live. Sometimes PumpSpy would come back up. Much of the time it wouldn’t. Restoring PumpSpy to operation was seldom easy. I often couldn’t log into the app as it would refuse my credentials. Since I use a password manager, I feel fairly confident that I wasn’t entering them incorrectly. Then at some point it would accept me. Then there are the times I tried to reset the device and start from scratch. Connecting it to my network would often take several time consuming attempts until it was successful. Finally, I use a security monitor on my network. It played nice with the literally dozens of items on it. Except for PumpSpy. Apparently this device is the lone item in my inventory to use a risky unencrypted connection that could leave my network open to malicious actors, and it would refuse to let PumpSpy phone home because of it. So…after several years of use, I have to say this product is not worth the price. I could live with every flaw this product has to offer except unreliability. I have too much to lose to depend on this frequently failing device, and I have to find another solution. My suggestion is that you should too

I spent 2 hours trying to set up this device, both manually and through the app. Every attempt ended with couldnt get IP address. I have called the support number, but havent received a return call yet. I will update this review if/when I get it working. UPDATE: After a phone call with tech support, I learned that you cannot set it up with an Android 10 or 11 device. I was told to use a laptop, iPhone or iPad to set it up. Then the Android device can connect to it. I just wish there was something in the instructions to let users know.

Overall this is a good product and I would purchase again. I did have the same connectivity issues, noted by others. System didnt want to connect to internet with 3-4 bars- I purchased a WIFI booster and it connected without issues. PROs: does what is says- monitors sump pump activity and alarms very quickly and reliably. CONs: the outlets are not tight- primary sump pump has no issues--back up sump pump has a heavy plug which has worked out of the outlet...a zip tie fixed this. Side note: this was installed on a new build house, which flooded prior to closing, when power was lost. So, I know the basement will flood if there isnt a workable pump system. I complained to the builder about the constant activation of the sump and was disregarded- I used this system via the app to show the builder that my pump was activating 2500+ times a day and discharging up to 27K gallons of water (Yes!!!!). The builder came out and found that a discharge line they installed was essentially recirculating water to the foundation. This wouldve burned out the primary pump and flooded my basement. This product, while expensive, does what its supposed to do.

All wifi connected devices have occasional connectivity issues. It just goes with the territory. My house doesn’t need a sump pump, but I have recommended the PumpSpy to three friends over the past few years who all love them. One friend contacted me recently saying his unit had disconnected from wifi and he couldn’t get it to reconnect. I tried to get him set back up but was also unsuccessful. I was starting to second guess my decision to recommend he get one, but had him contact PumpSpy hoping they would help. To my surprised they were easy to contact, called him within a day and had him re-connected quickly. I will continue to recommend PumpSpy and will be installing one in the new house I’m building.

Solid product. It is a bit pricey, but if youre looking to have the information and protection this provides, then this is your product. I had an issue, reached out to Pumpspy and they got back to me pretty much right away and got it solved. In my opinion, great customer service is as important as a product itself, which is why Im taking the time to write this review, as I usually dont.

5/19/23 Update - Posting an update to my original review below. After months of troubleshooting and communication with tech support, unit is now working. The issue was that my AT&T Smart Home Manager app was blocking outbound traffic on port 8081 (although it was not clearly telling me that) which the PumpSpy outlet uses. Note that the Outlet indicates red status if there is a problem connecting to WiFi or contacting the PumpSpy server. The Setup App implies (although not totally clear) that Red means there is an issue connecting to WiFi. I suggested to tech support to update their documentation to state that they use port 8081 to help others with troubleshooting. Although sporadic at times, PumpSpy tech support stayed in contact with me for over 6 months trying to figure out what the problem was. They also sent me a newer version of the outlet at no charge. So I really felt like they were standing behind their product and trying to make it right. For anyone who is shopping around, what I believe makes this product unique are the combination of 3 things: 1) Does not charge for monthly monitoring 2) Is not integrated into the pump itself (while this reduces the ability to monitor pump health, in makes for easy installation and compatibility across all pumps) 3) does not have shut off circuitry (some products have a built-in switch to kill the power remotely, but if that switch fails your pump loses power). There are still some issues with the app, which is why I rated at 4 stars instead of 5. Ive passed the details to tech support, and I know they have looked at them. Hoping at some point I will see an update to the app the addresses the issues. If that happens, will change my rating to 5 stars. ********************************************************************************************************************** I previously owned a pump spy outlet that, while a little quirky at times, seemed to operate fairly reliably for several years. Eventually it lost connection to the WiFi network, and despite hours and hours of troubleshooting, not only could I not get it to reconnect, I could not even get it to enter setup mode. The setup button would stick sometimes as well, so I finally concluded that there was probably a short or open on the circuit board, and it was a lost cause. Since it worked well for several years, I decided to purchase another one. The new one easily went into setup mode, but every time it would connect to the WiFi network, it turned the status to red (nonfunctional). I am fairly tech savvy, so I was confident I wasnt making some type of basic mistake. I could see from my router device list, it was connected to my WiFi network, but it always stayed in the red status. I tried using both IOS and Android devices, with no success. I tried all the different setup alternatives in the instructions including some other instructions tech support sent me. Every time, same result. I finally returned it for a replacement, and the replacement had the exact same problem (I was expecting it would but needed to rule out any issues specific to the prior unit). I reached out to tech support several times. Got a couple responses, but after I explained all the troubleshooting I had already done, they went radio silent. Technical details on how the system is designed are pretty sparse. I assume my issue is one or a combination of the following items: 1) firewall preventing unit from contacting PumpSpy server, handshake problem between outlet and Pumpspy server, and/or compatibly with the PumpSpy client. Having had good success with this unit in the past, I really wanted it to work. I offered to troubleshoot anything they wanted in hopes that would lead to a client or firmware update that would resolve the issue, but like I said after a few email exchanges, they stopped communicated. I suspect this is a small company with a small engineering staff and theyve probably had some turnover and lost some of the secret sauce. Just my speculation, but in the absence of communication all I can do is speculate. Kudos to Amazon for quickly sending me a replacement, and taking both units back for a full refund. I have no reason to believe these units are broken. All indications are they have a design flaw.

They have restored ability for app to track historical data thankfully. Otherwise there isn’t really much point to this device. Every once in awhile the app can’t see the device and I’ve had to delete and reinstall app. Apart from that if you want to know if your sump pump is working, how often, and even projected water out this is the only thing I found on the market. Worth the extra money upfront since there is no subscription needed.

Seems to work fine, but Ive only recently got it running. My biggest concern is that the outlets seem loose and one of my pump cords partially pulled out. I rigged up a ziptie support to take some pressure off the cords, but that was a little concerning and is a failure point. I also couldnt use their screw to secure the product because my outlet has screw holes on the top and bottom, not the center. I used a ziptie around the electric box (unfinished wall) as an alternative. On the software side, I tried several times to get this to connect to wifi until I read on their site that Block LAN to WLAN Multicast and Broadcast Data cant be enabled on your WiFi. Thats a pretty common setting (my router recommends to keep it enabled for performance reasons) and I dont understand why it has to be disabled permanently to use the device. Installation was otherwise easy enough and the software seems to work. Ill update if that changes after owning for longer. That said, the app wants location access and for me to enter full address? Why? I havent tested the high water sensor. On my to do list. Edit: Its still working 8 months later. The app on android has some occasional glitches that require me to clear data and log back in. Iphone app seems better. Got my first run-time alert last week (pump was fine; we were just having a literal flood and it ran for 10 minutes straight instead of its normal 8 seconds). The alert seems to trigger after 300 seconds. Itd be great if they could add a way for users to adjust that.

Serves its purpose once you get it set up... but establishing the wifi connection was totally frustrating. The automatic set up on my Android phone didnt work despite multiple attempts. I finally had to use the manual set up but the instructions were incomplete. Among other things, it requires entering the devices serial number, but fails to indicate where to find it. I finally found it on the side of the unit, but it would have been much easier if it was indicated in the instructions. After getting the unit connected, the app provided no information on the pump status. I finally tried shutting down the app and restarting it. It then started to work, but theres nothing in the instructions about trying a restart. Overall, it took me over two hours of screwing around to get it working... when it should have been a 15 minute job.

Update March 2019 - It has not started sending those alerts as I complained in the review below. Overall,I am satisfied with the performance of this device. I believe there is a lot of room to make improvements such as allow customers to setup custom notifications depending upon cycle length, # of cycles, time of day etc.. But overall I am satisfied and will rate it at 4 starts... for This unit doesnt alter for any sump pump malfunctions as it claims. It only monitors if sump pump is consuming electricity or not and just monitoring for how long or often it runs for. It doesnt even do the basic check of if pump normally runs for 30 seconds and t it gets stuck is one time it gets stuck and keep running for 15 minutes, it never picks up that. It has happened to me multiple times now, it never sends any alerts at all. To me its the most basic alert that it needs to send right away... Its waste of $150 for nothing....