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

Some reviews do not give this product the justice it deserves. I was cautious about buying this switch based on the issues experienced by some, but I am happy to say I am satisfied with my purchase. In fact, I bought 4 of these switches for various lamps throughout my home and plan to buy 4 more. They were easy to setup and I have a few simple rules setup in the app for lamps to turn on and off at various times. The ability to turn the switch on and off when I am not home is a nice as well. Some advice: When you initially setup after opening the box, each individual switch will most likely want to update the firmware. I recommend that you dont do the update when the app prompts you to after the initial install until you have all switches plugged in and recognized by the app. When I setup my first switch I acknowledged the update immediately and it took forever. Thinking there may have been an issue, I turned the switch off and then back on. All seemed okay and the update was successful. After I setup my rules, I ran the update which seemed to work pretty quick, but it turned all my switches off and I had to go back into the app to turn back on. The rules feature is kind of confusing, but if you play around with the the features or consult the Belkin website for troubleshooting it becomes easy to setup rules when certain switches turn on or off. It seems like you cannot personalize each switch; rather you will need to apply a specific rule to one or more of your switches. In this case, you may have multiple rules. The ability to remove a switch from a rule seems confusing. Being unsure if a lamp was removed properly, I just deleted and re-created the rule with the lamp I wanted. I gave this a 4 star rating because overall, its a great product and does what I needed it to do, but I think Belkin can do better with the app and making it more user friendly.

This is the buggiest piece of tech I have encountered since CD-Rs were first introduced. I am an electrical engineer who specializes in embedded software and really, there is no excuse for how poorly the software operates - wether it be in the device, or the app required to use the device. I would love to get a look inside the software for this, as I can only imagine how awful it must be. When the solution to every problem is to reset the Wemo, forcibly stop the application on your phone, uninstall said application from your phone, and reinstall, YOUR CODE HAS A PROBLEM. Its like reasoning with a petulant child. EVERYTHING seems to derail it. Change the name of your wemo from the app? FAIL. Add a second rule to the device? FAIL. Connect the device to IFTTT? FAIL. Seemingly connect the device FROM the IFTTT website? FAIL I fought with this thing to enable remote access. It looked like it wasnt going to work. After repeated messages that it was not working, hours later I open the app and remote access is enabled. I vacillated between giving this review from one to three stars. It does have a great form factor. And in its most fundamental terms, it works. I can actually remotely turn on and off the thing. And the rule I created to turn it on works (after much fighting with the device). The subsequent rule to turn the thing off? Not so much. And there is no easy way to change the network settings. And the settings I can change, any attempt to change them often results in an eternal spinning wheel. The worst part is, I dont feel I can rely on this device. The one I have I wanted to use as part of my irrigation system. But, as of writing this, it only operates as a remote control.

Been looking at this product for a while, but read some reviews where people were having problems with it, so I held off. May of 2014, I decided to press ahead and make the purchase. Instructions have a mere 4 simple steps, so how hard could it be? 1) Plugged in the Switch; 2) Downloaded the app; 3) In Settings, I selected WiFi, then Connect to WeMo network; 4) Launched the WeMo App to complete the process. Sorry, no go. Backed out and re-tried the Launch several times, but I kept getting booted out. Re-started my phone and tried again - no go. Deleted the App and downloaded it a second time; Launched the App and was informed it needed a system upgrade, but I was finally in. To test the system, I plugged an incandescent light fixture into the WeMo Switch and was able to turn it on and off using my iPhone (pretty cool) from about 6 away. OK, not all that impressive. After downloading a second system upgrade that popped up, I then enabled Remote Access, walked to the far end of our property (about 300 ft.) and turned the same light on with my iPhone - at least the indicator light on the App said I did. Walked back into the house to see the light ON! This is as far as Ive progressed with the WeMo, so until I use it further, nothing more to add - other than JUST KEEP PLUGGING AWAY WHEN INSTALLING AND SETTING IT UP... YOULL GET THERE SOONER OR LATER!

An update to my previous rating and review. After many updates this has become a much more stable device. While I havent been brave enough to factory reset and configure from scratch, day to day usage has much improved for both the Android app and the device itself. I do wish the USB port were useable to configure the device. Currently it only provides power to the device, which is more convenient than having it plugged into an actual outlet while you set the WEMO up. You still have to use the iOS or Android app to configure. Previously, maintaining a connection to the WEMO long enough to complete the configuration was a problem. ------------------------------------------------- Previous review: Attempting to set up a WEMO is more painful then rabies shots or puberty. Setting up from an Android device as far as I can tell is not possible and from an iOS device is an exercise in patients and self loathing. If you successfully configure the device it works quite well, up until it mysteriously loses its configuration. From that point on, good luck ever getting the thing to work again. 20 years of configuring all kinds of networking equipment and wireless devices and never have I disliked a device as much as this.

This review is for the WeMo Insight Switch, Wi-Fi Enabled, Control your Electronics from anywhere + Monitor Energy Usage, Works with Alexa. I cant begin to explain how much I hate these things. They are a complete nightmare to set up, are totally unreliable, and this is coming from an IT engineer who builds and supports servers, networks, and other IT infrastructure. When you first plug the units in, you have to download the WeMo app to a mobile device and then connect your mobile device to the adhoc WiFi network the WeMo initiates. Then youre supposed to run through the setup wizard, part of which is to locate your own wireless network, connect to it, and then download the firmware update for your WeMo device. The problem is every time you try to connect to your WiFi network, it tells you that its unable to connect and you have to start the process all over; unplugging / re-plugging the device, performing a reset on it, etc... It took me hours to set each one up. Once I got them online, I noticed that I kept having communication issues with one of the units, it keeps dropping offline. Every time I open the app, it asks me if I want to remove it from my list of device. Its only 80 feet away from my router, theres no reason for it to have connectivity issues. Whats even worse is this: I bought these because there have been times where I needed to physically reboot my server at home or my security camera since it has stopped responding, so I figure Ill use these WiFi enabled outlet plugs in case of emergency. Normally Id never want to just power off and on a server, but when the need arises and you cant do it.. its extremely frustrating. Well, I was looking at the WeMo for my security camera which popped up a firmware update available window and asked if I wanted to install it. It mentioned power would temporarily be shut off while the firmware update installs, so since I was in the security camera WeMo device I figured why not. Well instead of just installing the firmware update to that one device, it did ALL of them at the same time. This means it did a hard power-off of my server which not only resulted in the loss of data and corruption of several VMs; somehow the thing blew the power supply in my server. I had to replace it to get the server to power back up. If I could return these things I would. Theyre useless, unreliable, and they cant even be configured with a static DNS entry. Awful.

It took me an HOUR to get an insight connected. It should have taken 5 minutes. Belkin has taken a simple task of connecting a device to a home network and made it ridiculously cumbersome due to a very poorly designed app. Im quite experienced with setting up and connecting devices to a wifi network. Maybe the app is too dumbed down for me, but this should be a simple matter of selecting the device and pairing it with a wifi network. For those who have seen the movie Office Space, the scene were they take the malfunctioning printer out to a field and smash it into pieces is EXACTLY what I would like to do if the wemo app were an animate object. First, the app throws up a dialog about some settings, even though I saw that dialog a kajillion times, I dont remember what it said. The first time it came up, I dutifully clicked on the button that would (so I thought) give me useful information. Unfortunately this was not the case because Im on the latest version of Android, and apparently the instructions are written for a different version as I only had one of the items I was supposed to shut off (which was already disabled). Unfortunately, each time you are at the very beginning of insight installation, you get this dialog. It doesnt seem smart enough to detect if your settings are already correct, nor does it let you disable the dialog during the install steps. Once you get past the dialog, you select your device and then youre forced to go through a set of screens to connect your insight and app. On the last screen it says its connecting, but I never did get a message saying the app was connected to the app. If you X out of the screen, youre forced to start over at the device selection screen. The only way I could get the insight and app to connect was to do the following, once I got to the last screen where it said it was connecting, close the wemo app and re-open the app. Then when the wemo app opens, it tries to connect to the insight. It took me 20 minutes to realize I should try to close and re-open the app. Once I got the insight and wemo app connected, I was able to get the insight connected to my wifi network. And then the next problem arose. The app kept throwing errors about not being able to turn on remote access. No matter how many attempts, I could not get past this error. Also, the insight never did show up on the main screen, even after closing and re-opening the app. I did notice during the install that there were a couple of times where my phone reporting the insight connection as unstable. Next, I reset the insight and uninstalled and reinstalled the wemo app per the instructions on belkins web page. Once again started the pairing process. Once again, got the remote access error. Tried remote access again, then the device showed up in the app. A floor lamp was plugged into the insight. Turned the lamp on and off with the wemo app and it worked fine. But in the settings, it did not register that remote settings was on, even after using the app to turn the floor lamp on and off. Within the settings I selected the remote access and it then realized it was on I guess. FINALLY, my insight is connected and so far works. But Im afraid to connect the 2nd insight device. That the app might break the connection to the first device. After the insight is paired to the app and the wifi network, Echo pairs very easily to the insight device. This happens in the Echo app using a menu in the settings. Setting Echo up on the insight was the easiest part of the process. Another app quirk is that sometimes I would get the device and rules buttons on the bottom of the main screen, sometimes I wouldnt. Sometimes, Id have the icons at the top right of the main screen, sometimes I didnt. App performance seemed to be slow or go out to lunch occasionally and Id close the app and re-open it. Sometimes, clicking on something didnt seem to register with the app, sometimes it did. An alternative to the current app design would be to offer a guided install and the direct aka expert install for people experienced with installing smart devices on a network. The expert install would scan the area for a broadcasting device, allow the user to select the device, pair it with the app and wifi network, and wham bam be done with it. Device settings for renaming the device could be the last step or easily accessible through app settings. NEVER should the main app screen be hidden from the user. And if you X out of the guided install, you go back to the main screen, not the dumbed down getting started screen. This app feels like the specifications were VERY poorly written and test cases may have just been for the happiest of happy paths. It also feels like no integration testing was done for the various parts of the app. The only reason I bought a belkin product was for the Amazon Echo integration. This review is written after Amazon released the Echo SDK and hopefully more home automation products come along and I can dump the belkin products, or maybe belkin we re-write the app. I wanted to give the device a 1 star rating, but the extra star is because so far (after 15 minutes anyway) the insight continues to work. See how well this goes in the long term since some people have reported having problems with their devices. Updated one day later - Tried to install the 2nd insight device. Tried 5 times, roughly 40 minutes then I gave up. Im past the return window, otherwise itd be getting boxed up and sent back to Amazon. Each time the install went like this - my phone detects the insight and connects to it. I open the app and the app connects to the new insight device. Very quickly the app brings up the settings for the new device; the screen where I can change the name. I hit Done, and the app goes back to the main screen in which the devices are listed. The new device does not show up. I reset the device (apparently this is the only way to get it to show up as a device my phone can connect to again), and go back through the same process. Never does the new device show up as a connected device. Shutting down the app and re-opening did not help either. Also, each time I received the error about remote access not be able to be enabled. And each time, remote access was listed as enabled in the settings. After each reset, the light sequence went like this - green, green and orange (this is when my phone would detect the insight and connect to it), green while the app is connecting to it, no lights (which does match my already connected insight, so this must be OK), then orange. I believe orange is poor or no connection. Removing a star in my rating Updated 3 days after setting up the first device - Now the first device is flashing the orange color and does not show up in as being detectable in the wemo app and echo cant find it either. I absolutely refuse to reset the device and go back through the poorly executed installation process. The insight is less than 10 feet away from the router. Im completely done with this product, if I could give 0 stars I would

I recently bought an Amazon Echo and loved the idea of being able to connect home devices, such as wireless lights to it. I bought the WeMo Insight Switch to test out the idea of wireless lights. I wanted to make sure I had something reliable before I went ahead with purchasing more switches and converting more lights, so I thought testing it out with the family Christmas Tree would be a great trial run. I got the WeMo Insight Switch and the Amazon Echo the same day. The setup and installation was fairly straightforward, although the WeMo did take longer than the Echo so that was a little annoying. Once it was setup, everything seemed to work just perfectly. Until the firmware updates began, I had read other reviews and knew these were coming. Each update notification I got, I accepted it and let it install right away because I had read what happened to users that procrastinated on it. It seemed like every time I was opening the application on the phone, there was another update!! Frequently I was getting firmware updates 2-3 times a day. I know software needs to stay current, but thats just ridiculous! Now, only a few weeks (less than that) after getting the WeMo Insight Switch, the Amazon Echo can no longer discover the device. We didnt change our network setup, I didnt change the outlet plugin, nothing. It just stopped working. It used to be hooked up to our Christmas tree and it was fun telling Alexa to turn on/off the Christmas tree. Now Im just frustrated and wished I had listened to the other reviewers and not wasted my money on this garbage.

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 own the Wemo switch and light switch. Both devices work. They are easy to set up and you can do it yourself without any professional help (especially the plug in switch). There are many cons, however. First - the android app is garbage and the iOS app isnt much better. Creating a schedule on one app doesnt sync it with the other app. The apps themselves are slow to load and refresh themselves. You are better off making schedules using IFTTT, but it shouldnt be that way. Also, occasionally the switches will just glitch out for an unkown reason. For example, I wanted to turn mine on from outside the apartment one day and it couldnt locate the switch. No idea why. This has happened a couple times. Overall though, for now this is the best solution to easily getting some automation in your house.

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.