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

The Belkin Insight is just sloppy. It feels and acts cheap, and I’m sure that isn’t what Belkin is going for in terms of home automation. 1. Daylight Savings isn’t exactly a new concept. There is no excuse for the WeMo failing to account for it. 2. The WeMo insight last on for measurement doesn’t really make sense. It reads “last on for” as the time my espresso machine’s heating element cycled. Last on for should come from the rules/how long the WeMo is switched on. 3. Support requests require device serial numbers and model numbers, which should be reported in the app. Why do I need to unplug the device to get these numbers? 4. Setup requires multiple attempts before it “sticks.” Pretty much every review I’ve read after purchasing my WeMo complains about this. iPhone app shows all kinds of random graphical glitches. 5. Editing rules doesn’t always seem to register either, sometimes requiring multiple edit attempts. Home automation is a relatively new concept. In order to see wide adoption, it needs to work well. This probably isnt the platform thats going to make it work.

When the WeMo Insight is working, it works great and is incredibly convenient. On the other hand, its flakey, a pain to setup, and hard to troubleshoot when something (frequently) goes wrong. Most recently, after about four months of working flawlessly, a power outage today somehow put the device into factory reset mode. After setting it back up again, now its being flakey about connecting to my network. <sigh> Pros: Very convenient to be able to turn things on from anywhere, even when not home or laying in bed. Scheduling feature is great and lets things just magically be ready for you when you want them. Cons: WiFi connectivity is horrible. There are spots in my house where my phone gets wifi just fine but this Insight switch cant connect. LED indicator lights arent terribly helpful when trying to debug all but the simplest of problems. Very touchy when it comes to two phones separately controlling it. Gets very confused if you turn it on with one phone but family member tries to turn it off later with another. Boot up time is slow, adding frustration when trying to troubleshoot problems. If Belkin would work out the kinks in this device, itd be awesome. Until then, I cant recommend it.

I was really excited for this device to work as advertised because it sounds great on paper. In reality, the app functionality is buggy at best and at this moment it doesnt even work on iOS6 as stated in the specs. I bought this to control my pellet stove while we were away for Christmas. The first problem I had turned out to be a known bug with iOS6 that I was told is being worked on, but there is no date for an available fix. You can read about that issue on the WeMo forums linked here: http://community.wemothat.com/t5/Discuss-WEMO/wemo-app-1-10-1-crashes-on-iphone-5-ios-6-whenever-the-quot-more/td-p/5751 I was able to install the app on my girlfriends phone (running iOS7) and get to the more... tab in the app. Great, I thought! Next I updated the switch to the latest firmware available and set some rules to turn the switch on a few hours before we got home the following week. Everything seemed to be going wonderfully! I had almost decided to keep the device since I could actually program it with the later operating system. The time came when the rule was set to go off. I got a notification from hundreds of miles away, awesome! Well, I got 5 more of those notifications. The rule was to turn on the device once and only once. I dont know what was happening, but the usage stats were not making any sense. The heater was on when we got home, but as soon as we walked in I heard a click and the stove fans shut down. I had enough at this point and I removed the WeMo from the wall. I will be returning it because it simply is not ready yet. I really appreciate the aggressive customer support response but if there is no software support to back it up, then whats the point. I know from reading other reviews that Im not the first one to feel this way. Its a shame because it appears to be a beautifully elegant piece of hardware.

WeMo has been my solution to Christmas lights this year. Let me start by saying I had a lot of trouble setting the WeMo Insight Switch up on my wireless network at home. In the app, setup wasnt particularly intuitive to me. It might have been that I was tired or overcomplicating it in my head, but the app seemed almost too simple. The confusion came from the fact that I had to launch the app, read through the steps of what to do, close the app, perform the steps, and relaunch the app. On Android, at least, there was no way to set up a WeMo Insight Switch without closing the app, and re-launching it--a bit clumsy in my opinion. In hindsight, I know now that all I really need to do is connect to a wifi network the WeMo puts out (youll know it when you see it, or you can look on the physical device for the SSID name). When you do that, you launch the app which then prompts you to set the WeMo up with an existing wireless network. Then it restarts and attempts to connect to the wifi network youve just configured. In my case, this was a terrible experience because I found out my router may be incompatible with the WeMo. After configuring the WeMo with my home network information, it attempted to restart but failed repeatedly. When I contacted Belkin support, they didnt ask me for any information about my router, and were quite dismissive of the problem. It happened to work at one point during our contact, and they rushed me off as if everything was solved. It promptly disconnected from my network and I decided to continue troubleshooting on my own. The only way I figured out that my router was an issue is because Ive had similar issues with my Nest Thermostat with this router--I set up a second router as an access point with a second network just for these other devices. When I switched my WeMo to this access point, it worked smoothly. Overall, it mostly does what youd expect it to do. You can turn the switch on and off remotely from your phone. After your devices app has seen the WeMo switch and its configuration, it will remember the configuration even if you change networks. This is good for if you leave home and are not on wifi, or if, like me, you have multiple wireless networks at home. One problem with this is that if Im not connected directly to the same wifi network the WeMo is connected to, there is sometimes a very, very long delay before the WeMo responds to my input. The Android app is fairly bad at this point. Its menus are not organized well, its pretty slow and unresponsive, and setting up rules is not laid out well. There is definitely a lot of room for Belkin to make improvements to the app. Overall, I would like to recommend this product, but given the poor tech support I received, I cant say I would expect them to solve this problem for me, and I definitely dont expect the average user to know how to troubleshoot something like this if they hadnt run into it before. When I found the same issue with Nest, for instance, I was able to find my router listed in a set of models that might not be compatible. At the time I installed the WeMo, no such document existed from Belkin. Admittedly, the core technological issue is the fault of my router, not Belkin. Id like to not hold that against Belkin, but the reality of the situation is that anyone could have my router (its a fairly popular Netgear model from a few years ago--WNDR3700/N600) and might run into similar problems, and Belkin support should not give up so quickly, be so dismissive, or be so unprepared in general for issues like this. For me, its a pretty decent product. But I dont think I would recommend this for the typical user (someone who doesnt have multiple routers lying around the house not in use and available for troubleshooting purposes).

The Insight Switch is another great WeMo product made by Belkin. Having several of the light switches and plug switches, I decided to try the Insight after the price dropped in line with the other two. Prior to the price reduction, the ability to meter the electricity the connected device(s) use(s) wasnt worth the extra $10. Setup of the Insight Switch was as easy. I had come to expect easy setup from setup other WeMo products. Device setup requires a working wifi (Wi-Fi: 2.4 GHz 802.11n), a mobile device with the WeMo app installed, and a 120V AC plug. Prior to purchase and setup, I would recommend checking that your wireless router is setup for 2.4 GHz 802.11n. If youve purchased your router in the last 2 years, my guess is that it probably supports 802.11n. After plugging the switch into the plug, the Insight switch will create its own wireless network. Joining the network and connecting the device to your own wifi is simple and easy. My favorite part of owning these devices is connecting them to IFTTT (if this, then that). Its a free automation service that allows you to connect a myriad of channels which allow you to operate your WeMo devices remotely (or automatically). I have connected this switch to my dehumidifier. When my Ecobee thermostat detects that the humidity in my home is above a certain threshold, it turns on the switch (and consequently the dehumidifier). When the humidity falls below a separate threshold, it turns the switch off. This lowers my electric bill by only running the dehumidifier when its necessary, and it keeps the humidity in my home at a comfortable level. The Insight (metering) functionality is a neat add-on. Im able to see just how much electricity the dehumidifier uses (all within the WeMo app). While I think that the usage information is nifty, I dont think it adds a lot of value (unless you lay awake at night wondering how much electricity your appliances are using). While I think WeMo is a pioneer of home automation and I would strongly recommend their products to anyone, I dont know of many situations where I would recommend this particular model over WeMos less expensive Switch.

I bought this after reading the many mixed reviews. I have a modlet which is a similar device with a set up that is also challenging but I thought Id give the WEMO insight a chance. The modlet is pretty awful from a tech design perspective and this is actually better considering the challenges. The set up instructions are four steps on a short page but includes no troubleshooting. No support info. I tried to set it up and connect it to my wifi network and was unsuccessful about five times. I reset the unit twice trying to set it up. In the end I moved the device right next to my router and was only then able to connect only to my guest network with zero security. Wemo would not connect to any network requiring a password. I checked network settings and without getting into tech details I followed every direction for security on the WEMO web site and still could not connect. But Im only connecting an amplifier to the WEMO so I dont really care about it getting hacked but it was annoying. Once connected the device works great and while the app could be better it is still effective and relatively easy to use. It crashes occasionally but its itherwise ok. This is not the end of connected outlets. Long way to go before average people get this without the patience that buyers here needed to have to buy this. I almost sent it back during repeated failed setup. I cant find the WEMO on my Amazon echo. Not sure why but guessing that they are on different wifi networks since I had to put WEMO on my guest network. But for general controlling and saving energy this is ok. Could be better but with patience I could get the core functionality.

To give you an idea of my technical expertise... I was a young Network Admin during the dark ages of Novell 3.11. For those of you confused this would be around 1994 - 1999 give or take a year or two... If you could configure Novell you could configure the Space Shuttle... and I could. Fast forward 20 years, I have a home-based Internet company - I personally built 10 gaming computers not for gaming but for business... I do things like port forward into my home network to view my security cameras and connect to an internal web-server... In other words, I know what Im doing... Now about this Belkin WeMo INSIGHT SWITCH... When I plugged it in the first thing IT DID was lock down my router without me touching ANY thing! - I was more than offended when all my PCs were instantly kicked off the web... all I could think about was losing my Router configuration, because I havent backed up the Router config file in a long time .. After rebooting everything, I resigned myself to give this setup 30 minutes of my time, because I really didnt feel like returning and reordering something else... 1hour and 30 minutes later of trouble shooting, which included multiple reboots of my router to get my PCs back online (yes you read that correctly) Android was still searching for this device... For the record my router has been rock solid for 3 years under my command... Note: no direct PC config allowed - must be done on your phone - extremely lame - but not before holding my entire network hostage yet again... the thought of throwing this thing as far back to China as possible seems tempting and worth losing the $99 refund value/hassle... Ive always had a professional hatred for all things Belkin - the company slogan should be were the Jacks of all things- and the master of NOTHING... (I think they make bicycle helmets too) but this last experience has made my love personal... In addition they expect you to connect this device that sits 2 feet away through a third party, third world web server a million cable wires miles away. Oh and the WeMo App couldnt blow worse chunks either - what I saw of it - I really didnt get that far into the configuration I do not think this plastic paper weight shipped to me broken - I think it is working exactly the way Belkin designed it to... the only thing wrong with it is the logo on the side that reads B e l k i n P.S. - Ah yes – my window to return this plastic headache ended yesterday… I guess thats part of the Belkin business strategy... If I could throw it, or launch it back to China now I would...

DO NOT BUY THIS - There are better products available. Do not get sucked in to the Wemo ecosystem like I did - there are better, more reliable and - most importantly - flexible systems out there. Belkins support for this product is near zilch. The iPhone app crashes constantly at startup - very frustrating when I just want to turn on my bedroom lights in the morning. IFTTT support is now completely gone - whenever I try I receive This is not a valid IFTT code or similar. 10% of the time Wemo works, 90% of the time Wemo crashes (the app). More times than not, the app launches, crashes, and after many many times of relaunching/manually quitting on the iPhone, it finally connects to all devices. (Let me be clear here - the app CRASHES A LOT. A LOT. Ive given up on the damn app and just go to the switch and manually turn it on) Point is - way, way more frustrating than simply turning on a light. If the Insight feature is what youre after, save yourself from this junk and just get http://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1418942439&sr=8-3&keywords=power+wattage+meter for $15 to measure your usage in spots. Instead, heres what you should look into - Ive had GREAT success with GEs Wink platform, mostly because its open to other Z-Wave (aka generalized/standard home automation protocol) products which makes it easy to add other random devices without worrying about the Belkin ecosystem. Luton, GE, etc products are all supported with this purchase. Dont buy in to Belkins home automation products. Theyre horribly buggy, completely unreliable and the lack of media/app updates makes me think Belkin is slowly backing off this entire thing. Home automation has been around for a while now and perfected by companies like Lutron, Z-Wave products, etc. Look to those first and take the time to research what you really want. The open protocol devices are far more future proof than Belkins very weak attempt in this market.

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.