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

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.

The switch functions well manually or from the smartphone app. My problems started when I started to rely on the power consumption calculations. I suspected something was incorrect so I measured the power with two different power meters (scientific quality) to confirm the WeMo was wrong. For example at my machines idle (100 W) WeMo was reading 25 watts too high or 125 W. At full power my machine was reading 704 W and WeMo said 849 W. I also confirmed that my other two WeMo has very similar power calculation inaccuracies. So buyer be warned the the power calculations are consumer friendly but not accurate enough to be of any real value. This product was designed for the average Joe/Jane and not some one who needs accurate power consumption measurements. If you only want a switch that is operated by your smart phone then this is your product, otherwise keep looking.....

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! 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???

I ordered this to have at the office and turn on and off a desktop fountain during the summer and my space heater during the winter. My office has an unsecured guest network so I thought that I would be able to set it up but try as I might it would NOT connect to WIFI. On closer examination of the product materials it does stay it will not work on corporate networks due to port firewalls. Since I couldnt use it for my main intended purpose I took it home and thought I would take advantage of its energy measuring capabilities and perhaps use it as a vampire slayer. I plugged the power strip for my TV, cable DVR, and x-box one into the deceive. On my home network it connected easily. It told me that when all my devices were off or in standby mode they used 41 watts, which based on my utility rates is $31.88 a year if plugged in 24/7. So if you use this product as a vampire slayer and turn the power off half the time it will take 3.7 years to recoup the investment. The reports on energy usage are cool, but the savings just are not there to justify the device at this price point. If you are looking for a timer for a light or something in a location with strong WIFI signal this product will deliver. However similar products like the

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.

The idea behind these WeMo plugs is great. If Belkin could have made an app that was solid I would give this a better review. Set-up was a pain in the rear. I am pretty good with this kind of stuff and was baffled at how confusing the initial set-up was to configure this device. It took me a solid 10 minutes to realize that this device was actually emitting a wifi signal and that I needed to connect to it in order to set it up. I kept wondering why it wasnt connecting with my phone or why the app wasnt connecting to my router. Anyhow, once I got it set up and working properly (so I thought), I plugged my whole house fan into it. Great, now I can control my whole house fan and (which is in my attic) and then have the time set to turn it off. Well... the app is clunky. It wasnt easy and straight forward to set up the timer. It wasnt easy to distinguish if the timer was even enabled or not. Belkin calls it setting a rule. This doesnt seem very consumer friendly to me. Why not just have an option to set a timer and then see a count down? After playing around with it for a bit (turning the whole house fan off and on) I settled into the first evening having this device and a few hours after letting it do its thing I opened up the app to turn off the whole house fan. To my dismay I had discovered that the WeMo was no longer listed as an active device. I spent the better part of half an hour trying to fix the issue with the app before getting the ladder out, climbing in the attic and disconnecting the whole house fan from it. The next day I boxed it up and sent it back.... I hard wired the whole house fan :)

In spite of great difficulty in getting it to work, I rate this product 5 stars because it DOES work and it solves a problem. I got it because the Amazon Echo now offers voice control over switches like this one which show up as devices connected to your homes wifi. With the device I hoped to be able to turn a light in our living room on or off, making it easier for an elderly person to control it. First problem: I need the WeMo app. Not available on the Belkin web site. I suppose more experienced users would have gone to Google Play for the android app first, but it didnt occur to me for a while. Second problem: The app on my Android phone said it was installed but it couldnt find the Belkin WeMo Insight Switch. Lots of plugging and unplugging, uninstalling and reinstalling, and finally it found the switch. The light that it controlled could be turned on and off by the manual button on the Insight Switch and by the app on my phone. Third problem: Alexa, the Amazon Echo device, could not find the device when I said, Alexa, discover my devices, as Amazons instructions specified. Again I tried unplugging, replugging, deleting the app, reinstalling the app, and finally, just when I was prepared to return the device, the Amazon Echo said it had found the device. Im not sure exactly what combination of bumbling finally worked, so I hope I wont have to do it again. The Belkin web site was not particularly helpful for this problem, and I couldnt find anything on Amazon that was helpful. But now it works. We can turn a light in our living room on or off by voice. I feel as if I have won a great victory.

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 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.