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

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

This device is supposed to allow a user to remotely power on / off any device connected to it, yet its something that it does very poorly. For one thing, the method of connection is very backwards. (You have to have your cell phone connect to the WeMo, then train the WeMo how to access your router.) The WeMo has a microUSB connector that could/SHOULD have been used to make these devices programmable just by connecting them to your computer. WHY Belkin doesnt do this is beyond me. Furthermore, you cant simply connect to the WeMo via any old web page. (ie: you cant have an account on the WeMo website, and be able to control your devices from there... it ONLY works via the app.) Long story short - Hard to program, glitchy (forgets its own settings,) and, as such, might not be available on your device when you need it the most. (ie: while at work: Did I leave the iron on? Oh... its connected to my WeMo... Ill just check it... Wait... why is it saying that theres no device detected... Wait... did the house burn down? Oh no!!!) Final note: I noticed that you cant have multiple WeMos on multiple WiFi networks at the same time, so if your house is big, you have multiple wifi zones in your house, and you have one WeMo in each of those zones, you can expect that the App will only remember ONE of those zones device(s). This makes it way more difficult to use. FWIW, I also have the NEO, and (though theyre cheaper, bigger, [lunkier,] and arguably a little more obtrusive,) they work like a charm, and have NEVER forgotten their programming. Then ONLY redeeming quality about these devices is that it will track your electrical usage, but even that is only available on the App (not via a web page online,) which makes it just a little less than moderately useful. Buyer beware. [REVISION 8/14/15 - I removed the part in my review about having to open your routers MAC filtering to ALLOW ALL to determine this units MAC address. The units ALL have their MAC addresses printed on their sides, and THAT is the easiest way to determine the units MAC addresses.]

I bought the WeMo Insight Switch on a whim when it was on sale, then a Motion Sensor + Switch bundle later, so these are the products Im writing about (the Amazon page appears to mix reviews for all WeMo products). PROS * Works entirely with WiFi; does not require a special hub like some home-automation systems do * Aesthetically pleasing hardware design * Easy to integreate with other WeMo products (e.g., make Motion Sensor control a Switch) * App can be configured for remote access to control of devices when you are away from your home network * Does not rely on Internet connection CONS * Somewhat high (~1.5W) power usage per WeMo device when idle, presumably to keep WiFi radio powered * No API (except via Android and iOS SDKs) * Sometimes difficult to integreate with other products I ended up returning the Switch+Motion combo, followed closely by the Insight Switch. My biggest reason for returning the Switch+Motion bundle is that I couldnt make the Motion product do much besides control the Switch. This is fine if your house is entirely WeMo, but I was hoping to integrate it with my Philips Hue bulbs and couldnt. (I could, actually, with some third-party help: plug in a Switch for nothing, just to be there, then tell Motion to turn on or off the Switch with motion or after a certain period of inactivity, then use IFTTT with a trigger that fires when the Switch is turned off and an action that turns off Hue. This could be simplified a bit if IFTTT had a trigger for lack of motion like the WeMo app does, but it doesnt, and the whole setup is still a bit convoluted.) For developers or others who may want to tinker, this product lacks an easily accessible API (Hue, by contrast, is exposed via HTTP and controllable via REST commands). They offer SDKs for Android and iOS, so it appears the only option for customization is writing your own app. There is also not a Web interface, so the app (theirs or a third-party one made with the SDK) is really the only way to control these. This wont matter much to most people, but I like to customize some things have depended on this with other products before. As previously stated, all WeMo products use WiFi to communicate, which is an advantage in that you do not need a special hub like you do with, for example, Hue (execpt Belkins recently announced light bulbs need a hub, too); you can just use your existing WiFi network. However, it has a couple disadvantages: first, all devices need to be within range of your WiFi signal to be controllable, which was never a problem for me but may be for other people. Second, WiFi is more power-hungry than other wireless technologies typically used for home automation (e.g., ZigBee or Z-Wave). I suspect well never have battery-powered WeMo devices for this reason. My Switch, Insight Switch, and Motion Detector each ate up about 1.5 W just sitting there idle, which is 3-5 times higher than similar ZigBee and Z-Wave devices Ive tried (and ZigBee and Z-Wave devices that take batteries usually use even less power in that case beacuse they dont extend the network theyre on, which is something they usually do and exposes another one of their advantages: a possibly greater range). My suggestions: * If you only want a couple WeMo devices, WeMo may work well. Id be hesitant to fill a house with them because they use significantly more power than comparable alternatives, but with only a couple its (a) probably not a big difference, and (b) probably cheaper in that all you need is the WeMo device and a WiFi network (and the Android or iOS app), so you wont have to buy or configure a special hub. * If you dont already have a lot of WeMo products but think you might want a lot, Id suggest another solution that may lend itself to less power consumption and better integration with other systems. Personally, Ive returned all my WeMo products and switched over to SmartThings, which offers compatiblity with many ZigBee and Z-Wave controllable switches and sensors. (It does require a hub, but I think the tradeoff is worth it. Unfortunately, SmartThings is also heavily relaint on the Internet at the moment, but they claim to be working on that.) SmartThings can integrate with WeMo, but I swapped my devices (switch and motion sensor, at least) anyway because I wanted the ZigBee advantages Ive mentioned. * If you only want the Insight Switch and you only want it to know the power consumption of your devices, consider a Kill-A-Watt instead (thats how I determined the surprising amount of power WeMo devices consume even when idle). My luck with the products Ive used hasnt been as bad as others, and everything seemed to work well when I tried. My biggest problem was the lack of customization options, but there are other minor issues as well as I mentioned that also fueled my desire to seek alternatives. Still, for the average user who only wants maybe one or a few WeMo devices, I think it may work well.

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

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.

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.

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 bought this switch because the Wemo line was discounted for a day on Amazon. It works fairly well - sometimes the action is delayed. Setting it up was easy enough and pairing it with IFTTT has added some neat features. But the energy features of this switch (which make it cost $10 more than the regular switch) are worthless eye candy. Save yourself some money and by the Wemo Switch. Better still, buy the SmartThings Know & Control Your Home kit - better, quicker, more reliable. *** Also... *** This switch often doesnt have the same third party capabilities as the regular Wemo Switch. For example, if you use SmartThings, they support every product EXCEPT the Wemo Insight Switch with their app development environment (SmartThings Labs). Additionally, the recipes at IFTTT for the regular switch far outnumber the recipes for the Wemo Insight Switch.

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...

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.