PumpSpy WiFi Sump Pump Smart Outlet with Sump Pump Water Level Sensor, 24/7Monitoring & Alerts, Works with any 120V Sump Pump, Has Additional Outlet for Backup System For Sump Pump, White

For better or worse, I dont take the time to write many reviews. With this item, I could not help myself. We moved into a house with a sump pump three years ago. In over 50 years I had never lived in a house with a sump pit and found that I was obsessed with the operation of our sump pump for the first couple of years in the house. I bought water sensors, paid for sump pump flood insurance and laid awake at night listening for it to engage and had neighbors checking our house every other day when we were out of town -- all because I was so worried about flooding ruining our partially finished basement walkout. After the first pump (installed by our builder during construction) failed after 18 months - which I didnt discover for two days (and the pump ran for an hour to clear the backed up water), I became convinced I needed a back up. A plumber recommended two pumps at different levels rather than a battery backup (water backup not an option as we are on well). I found this item while researching battery backups and thought it would be of benefit -- it turned out to be perfect. It was no issue to install and now I can check on the status anytime I want, and will get a notification if the power goes out (if it doesnt report to the server) or if the water reaches the level of the wire sensor in the pit. I honestly started sleeping through the night after installing this - and leave without worry now. Yes it is a bit pricey but includes the lifetime monitoring - so no monthly fee. The only downside I see at all is that if the company were to go out of business, the monitoring ends, and therefore the usefulness of the product. Hopefully PumpSpy will be in business for many years to come. . . This really is a five star product in my book.

5/19/23 Update - Posting an update to my original review below. After months of troubleshooting and communication with tech support, unit is now working. The issue was that my AT&T Smart Home Manager app was blocking outbound traffic on port 8081 (although it was not clearly telling me that) which the PumpSpy outlet uses. Note that the Outlet indicates red status if there is a problem connecting to WiFi or contacting the PumpSpy server. The Setup App implies (although not totally clear) that Red means there is an issue connecting to WiFi. I suggested to tech support to update their documentation to state that they use port 8081 to help others with troubleshooting. Although sporadic at times, PumpSpy tech support stayed in contact with me for over 6 months trying to figure out what the problem was. They also sent me a newer version of the outlet at no charge. So I really felt like they were standing behind their product and trying to make it right. For anyone who is shopping around, what I believe makes this product unique are the combination of 3 things: 1) Does not charge for monthly monitoring 2) Is not integrated into the pump itself (while this reduces the ability to monitor pump health, in makes for easy installation and compatibility across all pumps) 3) does not have shut off circuitry (some products have a built-in switch to kill the power remotely, but if that switch fails your pump loses power). There are still some issues with the app, which is why I rated at 4 stars instead of 5. Ive passed the details to tech support, and I know they have looked at them. Hoping at some point I will see an update to the app the addresses the issues. If that happens, will change my rating to 5 stars. ********************************************************************************************************************** I previously owned a pump spy outlet that, while a little quirky at times, seemed to operate fairly reliably for several years. Eventually it lost connection to the WiFi network, and despite hours and hours of troubleshooting, not only could I not get it to reconnect, I could not even get it to enter setup mode. The setup button would stick sometimes as well, so I finally concluded that there was probably a short or open on the circuit board, and it was a lost cause. Since it worked well for several years, I decided to purchase another one. The new one easily went into setup mode, but every time it would connect to the WiFi network, it turned the status to red (nonfunctional). I am fairly tech savvy, so I was confident I wasnt making some type of basic mistake. I could see from my router device list, it was connected to my WiFi network, but it always stayed in the red status. I tried using both IOS and Android devices, with no success. I tried all the different setup alternatives in the instructions including some other instructions tech support sent me. Every time, same result. I finally returned it for a replacement, and the replacement had the exact same problem (I was expecting it would but needed to rule out any issues specific to the prior unit). I reached out to tech support several times. Got a couple responses, but after I explained all the troubleshooting I had already done, they went radio silent. Technical details on how the system is designed are pretty sparse. I assume my issue is one or a combination of the following items: 1) firewall preventing unit from contacting PumpSpy server, handshake problem between outlet and Pumpspy server, and/or compatibly with the PumpSpy client. Having had good success with this unit in the past, I really wanted it to work. I offered to troubleshoot anything they wanted in hopes that would lead to a client or firmware update that would resolve the issue, but like I said after a few email exchanges, they stopped communicated. I suspect this is a small company with a small engineering staff and theyve probably had some turnover and lost some of the secret sauce. Just my speculation, but in the absence of communication all I can do is speculate. Kudos to Amazon for quickly sending me a replacement, and taking both units back for a full refund. I have no reason to believe these units are broken. All indications are they have a design flaw.

Bad. Support was so so. Worked for seven months, then quit.

Update: Tech support eventually reached out via Facebook messenger. They sent me another unit that had the same problem connecting as the first. Then a 3rd unit arrived, and I was eventually able to get that to connect. Now that it is connected, it seems to work well. _______________ It wont connect either automatically with the app or manually with a computer or phone. The website login option has been discontinued. Left a message on Facebook. but no response. Called and had to leave a message with no response.

07/08/2022 - I am revising my rating as the history feature has been returned to the app. 06/13/2022 - Today I am lowering my rating from 5 stars to 3 stars after confirming with their tech support that the history data feature has been removed from the app. I can no longer recommend this product. I have been using this monitor for 2 years and was very happy with its performance. I have Apple iPhone and had no problems setting it up or connecting to my WiFi (two floors above). I have recommended it to others. I have received power outage alerts and during/after a rain storm I check to see that the pump has been running. I know that when working, my pump runs for 17 seconds and in a extreme downpour can run once every 1-2 minutes. Why is this important? Knowing your pumps characteristic nature and knowing your rainfall you can monitor the run data and detect a failing pump. One example is a worn impeller or cracked case will result in longer run times but not continuous running. PumpSpy has decided to delete the historical data feature that allowed me to periodically review past cycles and verify that the pump is operating normally. Someone else said they stored 90 days of history on their servers (data is not stored on your Outlet or your app/smartphone). I called Tech Support and they called back and confirmed the deletion of this feature and gave their reason. IMHO its a cost issue, as we dont pay for monitoring service, but somebody has to pay a server provider to host their service and store user data. I suspect as more people bought the product, their cost (which include data storage) increased and paying these costs was being paid from future sales. Sustaining this model can be problematic. Having this history feature is a key feature and PumpSpy probably needs to consider offering yearly cost for users who want historical data. Just a theory. One the positive side, if PumpSpy sees the error of their ways, it would be easy to reinstate the history feature.

I’ve been using this since mid-January and it gives me great peace of mind knowing that my sump pump is doing its job 24-7. It’s nice to know how much the sump pump is having to pump out, too! I have had short power outages and internet pauses but everything comes back online without a hitch. I just had a situation where the unit was still connected to the internet but not transmitting data to my app and I contacted tech support (via Facebook Messenger) and the support person helped me get it working again (on a Saturday even though tech support is supposedly only open M-F!). Just had to sign out the app and sign back in. Very happy with this product.

Well, the device itself works great. I get push notifications when events occur. Thats the good, the not so good is that you cannot install the device on your wifi network with any Android device. You need to install with an Apple device and then it will appear on your Android device. Unfortunately, once you have the app up and running, it is really hit or miss if you can open it and have it connect to your PumpSpy device. Really frustrating. The push notifications seem to always work but the device sets 300 minutes as the threshold where it announces the pump is running too long. My pump usually runs for 330 minutes to empty my sump. It would be nice to be able to set a custom threshold that makes sense for your particular system. So, while this product is a great concept and it seems to work for Apple devices the software is buggy to the point where it really diminishes the value of the price and time investment in installing. Would not recommend. Many, many folks confirm the software is poor or totally non-functional. Not worth the time I have to spend to re-install the app over and over again.

I could not be happier with my purchase of the PumpSpy. I live in a wet area, my house backs up to a bike path, so the ground is graded away from it and towards my house, so my sump pump is going off constantly (thanks to PumpSpy I now know the last time it rained my pump went off 1,179 times in one day). Having the knowledge of how often my pump goes off is huge, especially since pumps are only rated for a certain number of cycles in a lifetime, so having this data is great to know when I should be replacing my pump. I also love the alerts, and the water level indicator. I feel so much better knowing that I have this now and I will get alerted proactively if the water level overtakes my current pump (I do also have a backup). If you have a sump pump that is pretty active I couldnt recommend getting one of these more. I almost feel like it is a must have. Just add it to the cost of having a sump pump. Setup was very easy, I had this working inside of 10 minutes and I havent had a problem since. Even when I lost power and when I had my wireless access point replaced in my house this reconnected with no issues. They are also very responsive on Twitter as well, working on new features for their app. Great purchase, thank you!

I’d give this 10 stars if it was a bit easier to get working. However once it’s working it’s good to go. Been using since I installed about 8 weeks ago...and my sump runs literally every 6 minutes. I’ve had a couple times where it disconnected from my internet but it reconnected itself within 20 mins. Not the products fault though-my router is on the other side of my house AND upstairs. I read other reviews about difficulty of install and thought I’d breeze through it. I didn’t exactly, but it was well worth it. I’d suggest making the instructions a bit more clear with exactly which app to download THEN make the app a bit easier to work with. Great product!

I have had a smart outlet for 2 years without problems. My neighbor bought one recently and we could not get it to work for more than a few days. Now both my pumpspy app and his has logged us out and wont recognize our login credentials. Called and emailed support but no response. Not hopeful.