Eve Energy 2 Pack - Smart Plug & Power Meter with Built-in Schedules, Switch a Connected lamp or Device on & Off, Voice Control, no Bridge, Bluetooth Low Energy, Apple HomeKit, Bluetooth, Thread

It works well and communicates with other devices on a Thread network. My only complaint is the manual button to turn it on/off is the little status light on the face of the unit. It definitely was not intuitive that it was the manual button. And it is quite small and not easy to press.

I like it for hourly power consumption. When I was starting seedlings. App is harder to navigate and scheduling is painful

TL/DR: Do they work? Most of the time. Are they easy to program? Sort of. Do I recommend? Yes, with the reservations listed below. The product is sleek and appears to be solidly made. I appreciate the green lighted button on the front that you can use bypass the app when (not if) you need to. The size and shape is also great; big enough to securely hold the plug, but not so big that it gets in the way of using the other outlet. If there was some way to make the plug with the holes on the side, it would be easier to use in tight places like behind furniture. To use it behind a side desk table, I had to cut a 6 x10 inch hole in the back of it. A side plug hole would be much more flexible (and would have saved me from hacking-up a piece of furniture). There are a couple of other things they could have done better. One is placement of the QR code. After plugging it into power, my phone’s camera couldn’t see the code, which was on the other side of the plug. It’s often dark behind furniture and the code is printed in a very light gray color, so it was hard for the phone’s camera to find it. Having the code printed on both sides of the plug would be great. Typing the code in myself wasn’t THAT big of a deal, but then it didn’t connect with my phone after several frustrating tries. So I decided to send them back. However, I tried once more the next day, and it worked. The manufacturer made beautiful, high quality Apple-like packaging, but they followed the habit of many companies nowadays of making the directions only 2-3 pages long with inadequate graphics, and in very faint print. There’s too little info in the booklet or on their website to help explain how to install and connect it, at least for “old people” like me. A few times, as others have noted, the product seems to lose connection with the app too. I don’t know exactly what the problem is, but, given enough time, it’s been able to fix itself (so far). I worry about setting up an automation to work the lights while away on vacation. What if the plug stops working and can’t fix itself? Then the automation wouldn’t work and I wouldn’t even be able to command it remotely. Would the light just stay on, or would it not come on at all? Another issue I have is having two different apps that control the switch - the Eve app and Apple’s HomeKit app. HomeKit has more functionality (potentially at least) because you can program a Siri Shortcut. I found the Eve app nicer though, because their on/off button is a simple toggle. You open the app and push the button once and the switch is either on or off. With the HomeKit app you have to open the app, tap the button for the switch, then move a slider switch up or down. Unless there’s some reason HomeKit has to do it that way, that’s just another step. I’ve exhausted efforts to find a way to make a Siri Shortcut to create a simple toggle switch. Of course, I realize that all I have to do is say: Hey Siri, turn on the Office Desk Lamp, and she does it right away. But, if I say Hey Siri, turn on the “desk light in the office” instead of “office desk lamp”, she says she can’t find it. She doesn’t seem to know that lamp and light CAN be interchangeable terms. She could at least ask for clarification - “did you mean desk LAMP?” Much of this may be construed as whining, but I feel like the product isn’t yet “ready for prime time”. Real consumer testing (not by the “boffins” who made the product) and opinion panels could help bring out products that ARE ready for prime time. Diatribe over.