Wemo Insight WiFi Enabled Smart Plug, with Energy Monitoring, Works with Alexa (Discontinued by Manufacturer - Newer Version Available)

I have only had for a couple weeks, but so far it works flawlessly. I have this inside a shed controlling my pool pump. Its fantastic, because when I am doing work on the pool I can turn on/off pump from phone instead of running back and forth from shed/pool; timing counts, so I literally would run. In addition to that it has built in timer that has excellent program features. The first timer I had was a digital timer that worked fine for years, when it died the replacement lasted only one season, and now I have this that is well... smart! Hopefully it will last. I have not had any issues with connecting to the device, but if others plan to use like I am youll need to ensure you have wifi signal wherever you plan to use. I wasnt sure if it would work as unit is probably 70-100 feet from the wireless router that is inside the house (2 exterior walls separating them). I use with Android phone- Samsung S7. I would like to purchase a bunch of these, but so far cant justify the price for other applications. For the benefits I get with the pool pump this is totally worth it, and every time I use it Im glad I made the purchase.

UPDATE December 2014. Several more software and firmware updates (10.1.1 latest) and the product is now working as expected and deserves 5 stars. 99%+ the phone app works to connect (quickly) to devices and control. Insight is still a tad slower. We now have 7 different WeMo products and all are working very well. I wish I didnt have to go through the months of agony when we first got them. The current functionality is excellent. Working very well on both iPhone 5 and 6. UPDATE September 2014. In the last two weeks, Belkin has provided two iOS updates (1.8.X) and one or two firmware updates. The connectivity issues are nearly gone now. As I suspected, the issue was with the iPhone app that couldnt connect 8 times out of ten. With the new updates, connectivity is very fast and pretty reliable. Im still only giving the product 4 starts out of five for the months and months of issues I had with the product. The software is still not perfect with the Insight switches in terms of getting the update of data used, time on etc, but turning on and off all switches is now nearly instant as it should have been back in May of 2014 when I first purchased the products. Hopefully this new behavior will remain and I can now be happy with the product. ORIGINAL REVIEW: This generous 1 star is for the WeMo Insight switch. I also have two of the Light switches and one of the older plug-in units which would rate maybe 3.5 to four stars. The Insight is pretty much a piece of junk. I purchased two in May of 2014 and have had nothing but problems with them. In fact, Ive had to send both back to WeMo for replacement, one is due to arrive tomorrow. In a nutshell, the WiFi connectively with this product is simply awful. More than half the time, the silly device doesnt show up on the iPhone or iPad. Quit the app, reboot the phone, try using the Airport utility as recommended, no amount of fuzing around gets the unit to show up. Its just easier to walk to the device and manually turn the unit on and off. Belkin support has ranged from just awful to decent. Getting the last unit replaced due to its inability to be reset and then send out a signal was pretty bad. I had to keep calling and calling to finally get an RMA. The other two light switches and the one original switch work pretty well but not perfectly. At first I blamed their app which is pretty awful at updating itself. Then two Insight switches just flat out failed. Do not buy one! Try the other lesser expensive switch first and understand that the WeMo app is not very good. My wife and I have a good wireless network, weve got Airport Expresses (newer units) to extend the range, that didnt do a thing to fix the issues with the phone app and the Insights from communicating. The time Ive wasted with Belkin support, frustration trying to get the switch to operate isnt worth it, Ill just get up and do this myself with far less issues. Too bad because when the unit works, it is pretty slick. If it actuall worked 50% of the time, Id be in better shape than I am now, the Insight fails far more often than it works.

I use this to control lighting in my home. It was very easy to hook up (less than 5 minutes) and it works as advertised. I like how it detects the exact time of sunset in my area and turns on the lamp at that time. Very cool. I havent had to reset it yet. I try to stay on top of the software updates in order to keep things working correctly - there have been two updates in the past two months. Takes about 6-7 minutes to update. The app is free and very easy to navigate from my iphone and my ipad. The power consumption feature isnt all that useful to me but it is a nice extra. Overall, this is a product that works as advertised and makes my life easier. I recommend it. (I have four of them now - all working well).

I put my christmas lights on the switch and loved knowing they would turn on and off without having to contort my body and squeeze behind the tree hoping I didnt break anything to get to the outlet twice a night. I set up a program on the app to turn them on at dark and off at midnight. Since then, Ive put a lamp on a wemo switch and have it said to away mode- the lamp randomly turns on and off from dark until midnight for random amounts of time. Im not home a lot and this does a great job making it look like someone is at my house. Only reason for 4 stars instead of 5 is they do go offline from time to time.

I already had one WeMo switch to control a lamp in our living room. I wanted another one that I could use with our Bona Vita coffee maker that I could control with my iPhone. The WeMo Insight switch was on sale at Amazon and is significantly smaller than the original one I already owned. I decided to get one. Since I dont get up each morning at the same time I dont want the coffee to start when Im still sleeping. With the WeMo Insight switch, I set up the coffee the night before, turn the coffee maker to the on position and then when I get up, launch the WeMo app on my iPhone to turn the WeMo on. Coffee starts brewing and by the time I get to the kitchen, it is fresh and piping hot! I have the switch programmed to shut itself off at 3:00 PM so that if I want an additional cup of coffee during the day the coffee maker will work without having to manually engage the switch. I also have it programmed to turn on on Fridays only at a specific time since that one day I volunteer at a local park and know when I have to get up. Im a fan of these devices, but they do have some problems that Belkin needs to work on. Occasionally, in order for the app to work on my phone, I need to kill the app and relaunch it. I have a couple wireless routers in the house, all on the same network, but the Belkin seems to get confused as it passes from one to the other. Once its found the switches, it works perfectly. The big difference between the original Belkin WeMo switch and the WeMo Insight is size, with the Insight being significantly smaller. This works much better in an area where the switch is visible, in this case on my kitchen counter. Its also well designed to allow the use of the second plug in an outlet if the Insight is plugged into the bottom outlet. The Insight also has the ability to give you a lot of details about how much power youre using with whatever device youre controlling. In fairness, I dont use that feature, but if youre powering a device where you need that information, the Insight has a detailed report. You can see what it looks like on Belkins website. These Belkin switches are a bit pricey, but really do the job, day in and day out. Ive had the two mine for some time, and theyre very reliable. You can easily set a device to come on or turn off at a specific day, at a specific time, at sunrise or sunset, or manually. The rule is stored in the device which remembers it even during a power outage or it the device is unplugged. You can also trigger these devices from outside your home. When properly set up, you can control them on your phone from anywhere. With the WeMo Insight, you can also see how much electricity youre using on the outlet where its connected and potentially program whatever device youre controlling to lower usage and hence cost. This isnt a feature Im using, but if you need or want that information, the Insight gives very detailed usage stats. Id judge that the initial setup to be pretty straight-forward. You will need to know your wireless routers name and password. Setup joins the switch to your wireless network in order for you to control it. In my case, I use WPA2 Personal and had no problems getting the switches to function. Like most devices, there is a reset switch in case you need to move them to a new network. You then create rules for the switch which dictate how it will function. To do this, you need a free phone app that is available for both iPhones and Android phones. I really like this product and find it much more functional than just putting a timer on an electrical outlet. Theyre a bit pricey but appear to be very durable. Ive owned my original WeMo switch for three years and it hasnt hiccuped yet. Ive owned the Insight for about nine months, and it, too, has been reliable. I think of these as more than just a gadget. If youre looking to take control of an appliance or lamp or what-have-you, this is the product to consider. UPDATE Saturday, February 6, 2016: Ive been a fan of these devices for some time, but very disappointed in the iPhone app that lets you control it remotely. Until recently, my network consisted of multi access points. When launching the WeMo app, it was 50-50 whether it would find the switches, and if it did find them, identify them in the right state, e.g., on or off. There must be a new sheriff in town at Belkins software and engineering department because suddenly this app is working much better. They sent an e-mail out several months ago that said they were going to work on getting the device to work as it was supposed to, and by golly, it really is greatly improved! I always enjoyed using my WeMo switches and thought they were a good investment, but now Im far more enthusiastic. The app on iOS is greatly improved and the two switches I own are operating better than ever, even though they are both a few years old. Whoever took over the engineering department for WeMo at Belkin, Thanks! Great job!

The switch basically does what its supposed to however Ive run into several bugs in the Android app that make me question its design and long term usability. For example, when you go to change the default cost of a kWh, the app makes you use a set of four wheels to enter the value rather than just having you type it into a box using the keyboard. Also, when I saved the new value of $0.098, saved, and went back into the settings, the value displayed as $9.8 even though the calculations based off that value were still correct. That said, Ive been running around the house plugging all kinds of things into the Insight Switch to see how much power theyre using and its been a lot of fun to see where I can get the best energy savings by putting devices into standby or turning them off entirely. Ultimately the switch will end up on a dehumidifier in the basement and programmed to only turn on at night when no one will be disturbed by the noise it makes. Integration with IFTTT.com makes this a desirable item although I have a feeling that someone will come along and be able to make a better one. I would give the item an additional star if there was a sufficient web interface to control the product similar to the Nest or Dropcam however I have yet to find one other than using the aforementioned IFTTT. All in all I can recommend this product to anyone looking to tinker with and automate their home appliances but there are probably better options for a lot of use cases that are cheaper and easier to use.

The Insight Switch itself, once you get it up and running works great on its own (more about this later). Getting it set-up is another story. When I received the three Insight Switches they, naturally, needed firmware updates. The issue was two of the three switches crashed during their firmware updates. I had to end up dealing with Belkin email support and having to perform MULTIPLE hard resets. The major issue with these switches is the WeMo technology itself. Unlike Z-Wave or Zigbee standards, Ive discovered the only phone applications that work with these switches operate WeMo switches only. Z-Wave and Zigbee standards offer interoperability with other Z-Wave and Zigbee devices (i.e., can control your lights and switches with one app). Ive searched high and low for apps that control both WeMo and Zigbee devices and they simply dont exist. Long story short, be prepared to have at least TWO apps to control your home.

I purchased 3 in Nov 2015, installed them in Jan 2016 and loved them! But then in March one of my three died...nothing out of ordinary use, bedroom lamp, low wattage, no electrical spikes, just died one day. I tried it in other outlets, over several days but I guess it is just dead. That is 33% defect rate and I manufacture products for a living so I just think this is not acceptable. I downloaded the pdf (3 pages) on filing a claim and to be honest I am going to file the claim, and I will update my review and let you now how it goes. Personally, I rarely file a claim, I just stop buying from the manufacturer but since I have two other wemos I am just pissed off enough to go through the process and pain of filing a claim. Follow up #1: I called 1-866-515-2054, after two minutes of punching in #s got a live person and Rachael listened to my 2 min summery, put me on hold for 4 minutes to talk to technicican who approved my exchange, and then she emailed me RA # and talked me through the process while I filled it out on line. Finished the call after 14 minutes. They require that I pay for shipping (to return the product), but they will ship me out a free replacement. So all in all not too painful, but it still will cost me both time and shipping back to them to get a replacment I DID NOT BREAK, they had defective parts that did not last the expected life cycle of the product. I am hoping they will at least include a 50% off coupon as compensation for my frustration, time and shipping costs...

I use my WeMo Insight Switch to control my space heater and its also paired with my Amazon Echo. Very simple set up process, anyone over the age of 8 could probably set this up and pair it with the Echo. At $50 each, I cant afford too many of them, but the one I do have is worth the $50, in my opinion. If youre considering the regular switch verses the insight switch, Id recommend to go with the insight switch, as it gives you great detail on your energy usage and allows you to set up rules. I personally have my space heater turn off after 15 minutes (so I dont burn the house down) and since its paired with my echo, if its cold at night Ill tell Alexa to turn on the space heater and I know it turns off after 15 minutes. Only complaint I would have is the switch takes up a lot of space, which causes me to lose one outlet off the power strip. But overall this is a great product and I would buy again.