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

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 2/17/2016 I am now up to 5 of the Insight Switches and 3 of the Light Switches. They continue to work great, no problems with dropping from the network, no problems after power outages, etc. We use the Insight Switches to turn off power to heaters and heating pads/blankets overnight to ensure they have no power for the sake of safety. We use the Light Switches for our outdoor lights to turn them on at sunset and off at 11pm. We also use an Insight Switch to turn on our bedroom lamps a few minutes before we turn-in during the week. Thus far we have had zero issues. ORIGINAL REVIEW I purchased two of the Belkin WeMo Insight Switches several months ago and am quite pleased. I have worked in the technology and information security sectors for 17 years now. I have installed, configured, and played with more networks and gadgets then I care to admit. Being a techie that works on tech all day long, I dont really have much tolerance for fighting technology in my personal life. All of my gadgets at home were completely chosen because they are simple, easy to use, and maintenance free. That being said, one of the things I evaluate a product for is how user-friendly that product is for the average user. I found the Belkin setup process is be very straight forward and easy. Simply plugin, join your phone to the new Belkin network, start the WeMo App, find the new WeMo device in the list, join it to your wireless network, and that is it. The WeMo app even moves your phone back to your wireless network for you. The app detects new firmware immediately and I found the update process incredibly easy. Each switch can be given a unique name and you can even assign your own image as well, for quick reference. Right now, I am putting my Insight Switches to good use for the holidays. One controls our Christmas tree lights and the other is controlling holiday lights on a separate display. I configured both using the rules engine in the WeMo app, which I found pretty easy. Rules are set to turn on the lights at a particular time in the morning and turn them off at a particular time at night. If I had any gripe at all, it would be that I wish there was some level of authentication between the WeMo app and the WeMo switches. Since these devices are only accessible on your network, there is no real fear that a hacker is going to gain access to your switches. However, anyone that is on your wireless network and has the WeMo app can control the devices. So I will have to keep an eye on our mischievous teenagers when they come home from college for the holidays. ;-)

Been looking at this product for a while, but read some reviews where people were having problems with it, so I held off. May of 2014, I decided to press ahead and make the purchase. Instructions have a mere 4 simple steps, so how hard could it be? 1) Plugged in the Switch; 2) Downloaded the app; 3) In Settings, I selected WiFi, then Connect to WeMo network; 4) Launched the WeMo App to complete the process. Sorry, no go. Backed out and re-tried the Launch several times, but I kept getting booted out. Re-started my phone and tried again - no go. Deleted the App and downloaded it a second time; Launched the App and was informed it needed a system upgrade, but I was finally in. To test the system, I plugged an incandescent light fixture into the WeMo Switch and was able to turn it on and off using my iPhone (pretty cool) from about 6 away. OK, not all that impressive. After downloading a second system upgrade that popped up, I then enabled Remote Access, walked to the far end of our property (about 300 ft.) and turned the same light on with my iPhone - at least the indicator light on the App said I did. Walked back into the house to see the light ON! This is as far as Ive progressed with the WeMo, so until I use it further, nothing more to add - other than JUST KEEP PLUGGING AWAY WHEN INSTALLING AND SETTING IT UP... YOULL GET THERE SOONER OR LATER!

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.

Firstly , AMAZON is smart not to allow reviewers to assign no stars to reviews because if I could I would do so for this POS in a heartbeat . Secondly , the hardware is solid and robust and based on the specifications can handle the 15A a/c that my refridgerator will draw while the compressor is running . Finally , the software . Dear lord the software . Without a doubt the absolute worst piece of programming issued to consumers EVER produced . No user friendliness whatsover even after so called firmware updates to set up an off/on schedule almost made me throw the thing in the garbage. Every single reviewer who has given this piece of junk less than 2 stars is right on the money , so after an hour of my life wasted and $57 gone to the thieves at Belkin I eventually ended up plugging in ol faithful Intermatic DT620 Heavy Duty Indoor Digital Plug-In Timer ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004TGO6RY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) into the Insight since it already had my on/off schedule and just set to Insight to email me when a power failure occurs so I can turn it back on remotely . Finally , the next moron at Belkin who tells me to use IFTTT to control my on/off times is gonna read some words via email thatll make their heads spin .NEWS FLASH : the average consumer wants to buy a product , set it up and then forget about it . Telling me to write recipes is ridiculous .Granted I know how to do it but the WeMo app SHOULD HAVE THAT INCORPORATED IN IT JACKASSES!!. For the love of ...sigh ..

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).

It took me 3 hours total to set it up. The initial setup was somewhat easy. Connecting to IFTTT was painful and took several complete factory resets. BTW, how to perform a factory reset is impossible to find on their web site which kept giving me page not found errors. I had to guess many different combinations and after a while one worked. They have many cute videos that obviously cost much more than a simple owners manual, but they dont actually tell you the simple workings of the device. The app is nice to use, but had to be deleted and re-downloaded to make the setup work. Maybe they could hire some good programmers instead of a huge marketing department. I actually like the device, but I think I could make a bundle explaining to people how to use one.

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...

Had a few problems getting it to set up. Had to go in my iPhone settings and forget all the wifi connections i already had cause it kept choosing the wrong one during setup for some reason. After that there was a problem with the firmware update. Had to do it over and over again till it final took. Then everything worked fine. I like how it shows me how much money the appliance or whatever you have plugged into it is using. I am using it for a ac window unit. The unit i have remembers the settings when there is a power outage so it turns right back on to the same temp as it shut off at. Works perfect for that.