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

I bought one Belkin WeMo Insight Switch to dip my toe into some simple home automation. It works well, easy to set up and the app is simple to use. I currently have it connected to a space heater and it shows the watts the heater is using which match the specs of the heater so it seems to be accurate. Somehow it even tells me the daily and estimated monthly cost. Time will tell if that is accurate. You can set up rules on the app to automate when it powers on and off which are handy and work well. I have also set up rules and an alerts using IFTTT which is pretty great. You do not have to be on your own home network to control it and you do not need a special hub which was a real selling point for me since I do not have one yet. My only complaint is that sometimes the remote access fails, when that happens if I close the app and re-open it that will usually get it working again. ....Update to initial review: After living with this for some time I have found it to be unreliable. Others seem to have the same issue and apparently it is linked to the loss of WiFi. If it disconnects from your router (which happens in every network) it cannot be counted on to work as expected. Randomly turns on on off...I was using it to control a space heater but since it would turn it on without my knowledge I had to unplug it. Currently sits in a drawer in my desk until I have the time the mess with it. All and all...it does what is says it will do and it does it well. I think Ill get at least one more.

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).

The Belkin Insight is just sloppy. It feels and acts cheap, and I’m sure that isn’t what Belkin is going for in terms of home automation. 1. Daylight Savings isn’t exactly a new concept. There is no excuse for the WeMo failing to account for it. 2. The WeMo insight last on for measurement doesn’t really make sense. It reads “last on for” as the time my espresso machine’s heating element cycled. Last on for should come from the rules/how long the WeMo is switched on. 3. Support requests require device serial numbers and model numbers, which should be reported in the app. Why do I need to unplug the device to get these numbers? 4. Setup requires multiple attempts before it “sticks.” Pretty much every review I’ve read after purchasing my WeMo complains about this. iPhone app shows all kinds of random graphical glitches. 5. Editing rules doesn’t always seem to register either, sometimes requiring multiple edit attempts. Home automation is a relatively new concept. In order to see wide adoption, it needs to work well. This probably isnt the platform thats going to make it work.

Had a few problems getting it to set up. Had to go in my iPhone settings and forget all the wifi connections i already had cause it kept choosing the wrong one during setup for some reason. After that there was a problem with the firmware update. Had to do it over and over again till it final took. Then everything worked fine. I like how it shows me how much money the appliance or whatever you have plugged into it is using. I am using it for a ac window unit. The unit i have remembers the settings when there is a power outage so it turns right back on to the same temp as it shut off at. Works perfect for that.

I was really excited for this device to work as advertised because it sounds great on paper. In reality, the app functionality is buggy at best and at this moment it doesnt even work on iOS6 as stated in the specs. I bought this to control my pellet stove while we were away for Christmas. The first problem I had turned out to be a known bug with iOS6 that I was told is being worked on, but there is no date for an available fix. You can read about that issue on the WeMo forums linked here: http://community.wemothat.com/t5/Discuss-WEMO/wemo-app-1-10-1-crashes-on-iphone-5-ios-6-whenever-the-quot-more/td-p/5751 I was able to install the app on my girlfriends phone (running iOS7) and get to the more... tab in the app. Great, I thought! Next I updated the switch to the latest firmware available and set some rules to turn the switch on a few hours before we got home the following week. Everything seemed to be going wonderfully! I had almost decided to keep the device since I could actually program it with the later operating system. The time came when the rule was set to go off. I got a notification from hundreds of miles away, awesome! Well, I got 5 more of those notifications. The rule was to turn on the device once and only once. I dont know what was happening, but the usage stats were not making any sense. The heater was on when we got home, but as soon as we walked in I heard a click and the stove fans shut down. I had enough at this point and I removed the WeMo from the wall. I will be returning it because it simply is not ready yet. I really appreciate the aggressive customer support response but if there is no software support to back it up, then whats the point. I know from reading other reviews that Im not the first one to feel this way. Its a shame because it appears to be a beautifully elegant piece of hardware.

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.

Ok, so after working with one of these I got another. I originally used the first one as simply an outlet to use the remote on and off functionality. Before a longer trip, I got another to use on/off timing functionality for some lamps in the house. Initially, after setting them up and updating the firmware, we tested them for several nights. The first night, one malfunctioned by mysteriously switching on and off every couple of seconds. We never figured that one out. Eventually, we got away from that by pulling it out and starting over. More documentation would be helpful, particularly about the away mode. The switches cycle on and off randomly in away mode, surprising us. After reading several support articles, we figured this out. The support articles are the best documentation, but youve really got to search things out. Something more than a simple quick start guide would be appreciated out of the box. Its also a concern that there is no UL listing for this product. This begs the question, how safe are they to be away from? The notification feature often actuated for no reason too. It will take some time to convince me this is a robust product.

Update! After doing some research on the web and reading through lots of forums, I found a fix that worked for me using an Airport Extreme: 1. Updated settings in AirPort Utility to WPA/WPA2 personal, rather than WPA2 personal. Waited for Airport Express to restart. 2. Verified that iPhone connected to airport network. 3. Opened WEMO app and connected to WEMO network. 4. Selected AirPort network. This time WEMO connected fine, and was able to work. 5. Followed the WEMO instructions, and it works. Still annoyed that WEMO couldnt tell me the fix, but hey Ill take it Absolute Crap! Worked well until we had to change the router, now it will not connect no matter what we do. The app will not recognize it, and I cant return it for a refund. Before you buy this, think.....do you want to waste money on technology that sucks???

The following review deals with this switch, an Apple Airport Extreme (2013 model) a Nexus 7 tablet and/or a Motorola Moto X. One of the most attractive features of this and the associated WeMo devices (and the touted WeMo android app) is a theoretical set of rules that supposedly allow you to program the devices to work together. So for instance, you can get a WeMo camera which has motion sensing and you can theoretically program this light switch to turn on and off for a specified period of time when there is motion sensed by the camera sensor. On a less complicated level, you are theoretically able to set up a rule to turn the switch on at sunset for your specific geographic location. Each component works i.e. the motion sensing feature of the camera works and the turn the light on and off feature works with the switch but......the rules part does not work. Unfortunately, you go through a whole Wizard of Oz bunch of people who really seem to be honestly intent on resolving your issue with the product until you learn that your issue is actually the manufacturers issue. The advertised features simply do not work when it comes to the rules category. If you have a plethora of time and patience, you may eventually be connected to an apparently very well meaning or at least well meaning sounding person who will tell you that your case is being forwarded to the developers........Upon further research, you will find that this has been the case for some time and there is a third party Android app that you can buy which theoretically will make the devices and the rules work together. I have not tried that. As an expensive timer or an expensive remote that you can use your phone to control, it works. And it works well. If you have an android phone and use that as your alarm clock or your bedside clock, you can use the app to turn a light on and off remotely with ease and consistency. For the simple on at sunset rule, you can use IFTTT.com. That works most of the time. Maybe it works with the iPhone. Dont know but the app is supposed to communicate with some Belkin server somewhere to coordinate the rules and so there should be zero difference whether you use an android device or an IOS device to do that. There was an update to the WeMo Android App a couple of weeks ago and it made zero difference in the disfunction of the rules business. Android users (kitcat specifically)....Caveat Emptor

I like that the Insight switch lets me see the energy consumption of the device attached, and that I can control it with weather events through IFTTT. I use this one to turn off our whole-house fresh air ventilator when the outside humidity gets too high, the temperature gets too low, or the pollen count reaches a certain point. But there is a flaw in the entire WeMo operational model if you want to use it for any kind of large scale use. You must have a smartphone or tablet to control any of the WeMo devices. More importantly, for any given phone (or table), you can only control the devices at one location. Why does this matter? Because if you plan to use WeMo devices to control functions at your vacation home as well as your regular home, youll need two phones - one for each house. Im not sure of the technical model, but it seems that the phone apps can only connect to one location at a time. So you can see all the devices at the Vacation home if you just installed a bunch there and set them up with your phone. But if you come home and install a device in your home, it will forget all the devices at your vacation home - and the only way to get them back is to go to your vacation home and set them up again. At which point it will forget all the devices you set up at your regular home. In fact, at least for us, it even dropped all the programming for the vacation home devices and they were no longer controllable from IFTTT. The only solution is to have two phones, or a phone and a tablet - one for each location. I had hoped to use WeMo to control our 3 vacation rental houses. But Im not about to set aside 3 separate tables for each, as well as a phone for my own home. Sigh. So close.....