TREATLIFE Alexa Smart Plug 4 Pack, 7 Day Heavy Duty Programmable Timer, Works with Alexa and Google Home, 1800W 15A WiFi Smart Outlet, Child Lock, Vacation Mode, Reliable WiFi Connection

wifi signal to one of my plugs is weak

The product seemed to work alone but having difficulty connecting to my Alexa. Could not get help and Amazon agents did not speak good English, did not understand and tried to pass me to Treatlife, which I could not get a live person and they sent an email which I could not understand.

As an entry level smart home device, this cant be beat!! Plug your floor lamp into it, you can turn it on-and-off from anywhere. Plug your old coffee maker into it, and its suddenly a smart coffee maker! Hook your crockpot to it, and you can turn it off while running errands! Put a box-fan in your window, and you can have it automatically turn on the fan when the outside temperature reaches a low level, turn it back off when the outside temperature reaches a high level. You can also set an automatic timer, after you turn it on, itll automatically turn off after any amount of time. Or, have it turn on and off at the same time of day. It has a side-button to manually turn on-and-off the device. You can disabled the side button to prevent small fingers from fiddling with it. Lastly, if you have smart switches, you can add rules to turn this on and off with the switch. Its like adding something to the circuit without having to rewire the house! (PS: Dont plug your modem/router into it, especially if you cant reach the plug!)

So functionally,. These smart plugs do everything advertised. They have the 15 amp relay , they have timers, they can be in groups, they have an app, and they can connect to google and alexa. But everything is cloud based. When you install the treatlife app, you gotta create a cloud account. No cloud account, noise having them. Once created, you gotta create a home, family, and then rooms. Pairing the device is simple, push the botton, and the app uses bluetooth to find the new device and then you tell it what your wifi password is via the app and it registers to the cloud. All the timer events are in the cloud. In fact, to turn it on, the app contacts the cloud and the device turns on/ in about 5 seconds after the button press. There doesnt seem to be an internal clock for the timer events. So if your internet is down, your timer features are gone. This is why I dont like the cloud only features. We have to assume that treatlife could be gone in a year rendering these smart outlets useless. These outlets look like many other OEM smart plugs. From experience I have also learned that these devices which need a cloud account are disposable in a year, when the cloud policies changes . And do you really want a server in china having control over your appliances. The alexa and google features basically use the local home controller to connect to their cloud to control local devices. Ill keep them, but I am still looking for locally controlled outlets with a timer. These arent them. But they do work, for now.

I have two great uses for this product. The first is to power my electric fireplace. I paired a plug and then put it under the fireplace, where the control unit connects to 120v power. Then I turn on the switch that typically turns the fireplace on to start the flames. Because the plug is paired to Alexa, I can. now just tell Alexa to, Turn on the Fireplace and it works. The second place was on one of the lamps in my bedroom. I get up typically around 6:20. And at this time of the year, it is dark out where I am. So the plug automatically turns on at 6:20 AM. This paired with my soft-awake alarm always does the trick. Setting up the plugs was incredibly easy. And because I have already paired the app for other devices, Alexa knew about it as soon as the functions were working.

Right off the bat, I have to mention that 1 of the 4 in the pack was dead on arrival. I didnt feel like having to send all 4 back after setting them up, so I guess Im just gonna eat the cost of that one. These may look identical to the smart plugs sold by Amazon for use with Alexa, but theyre not as quick and easy to set up if you do intend on using them with Alexa. With the Amazon ones, Alexa immediately spots them and adds them. For these, you have to create an account with TreatLife (didnt know that going in, but I guess I should have expected it), plus download their app., which I really wish I didnt have to do. Then you have to connect that to your Amazon account. Its not that difficult, but still extra steps that I wish werent required. I had a lot of issues trying to get setup to work at first, but as it turns out, I was just unlucky to try setting up the defective plug first. It was only after setting up the other 3, which went much smoother, that I realized that the first was bad. Overall, despite the defective item and the extra setup, I still give them 4 stars. For the price of just one Amazon plug, you get 4 here, so the fact that theres extra setup doesnt bug me. Also, the quality seemed generally good, and I think the defective one was just a freak accident.

Some people stated that it was super easy to install and some stated it was a pain. Im siding with it being a pain. Yes I know that it only runs on 2G, but my Alexa couldnt locate the plugs, and I had to contact customer service at Amazon, which was very helpful. I had to download the Smartlife app in order for Alexa to recognize them. So, no, this was not easy to set up. It took my over 2 hours to set them up. Once they were up and running, they seemed to work well. Im decent with technology, but this was kind of stupid since I had to download a completely different app for the plugs.

This works just like the GE outlet that came with my Google Mini. Easy to use, just how it should be. The only issue I found is in the installation. In the Treatlife app, the outlet is found right away and pops up in a new window on the bottom. When I installed this way, I was unable to turn it on by the app, only by the physical button. Dont use that new window. You have to back out of that window. Install it manually, like you would any other device (with the + symbol). After installation, I was able to turn it on by the app, and the physical button. If you install like that, youll have no problems

They are easy to install, easy to program and work great.

Works well!