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

Ive had this insight switch for about 6 months now and I find it very useful. It was easy to setup but it did take longer than I expected to connect to my wifi and be up and running. Not a lot of steps, just a lot of waiting. The app lets you know how much power it uses on average and how much it is currently using which is kind of a cool feature. I have the Wemo connected to the main TV in the house. I have little kids that sometimes will constantly turn on the TV. When that happens, I can open the app, tap the power button and the battle is over. There is so much you can do with this thing. The app is pretty basic but you can use the Wemo with the IFTTT app and get creative. So while the Wemo app could use some more features and sometimes takes a while to connect to my device, Im overall happy with it. Update 7/16/15: I purchased the WeMo Light Switch recently and Amazon wont allow me to review them separately. I had the Chamberlain switch that worked with my garage door opener and app for my outside lights. It worked well but lacked any integration with IFTTT or any other features besides on and off. I wanted to turn on the outside lights at dusk and then turn them off at dawn since my car was broken into while the lights were off late one night. I felt like I was wasting money leaving the lights on until I woke up when it gets light so early in the summer. So I tried the Wemo light switch. The Wemo light switch was easy to install. (It did require a neutral wire which the Chamberlain switch did not). It connected pretty easily and works well. It was super easy to setup a rule in the Wemo app to turn on the light switch at sunset and off at sunrise. It even gives you the option to turn it on or off a certain amount of minutes before or after sunrise/sunset. The specific time changes based on your location. You can setup rules in the Wemo app to have it turn off after its been on for a specific amount time, with motion (if you have a motion sensor), and more. The switch is more stylish than the Chamberlain switch. The app is still slow especially trying to edit rules when I am outside my home network but it does work. I also have an Amazon Echo and it is great that it works with the Wemo products. Not that I use it much but its fun to turn on and off lights by asking Alexa to turn on the outside lights. I do wish it could tell me how long the light has been on or off like the Chamberlain switch did or gave me all the info the insight switch does but thats not a deal breaker. Im happy with my 2nd Belkin Wemo product and will likely get more.

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!

UPDATE: 3/28/15 ive given this Wemo Insight WAY MORE than a fair shake. ive sincerely tried. unfortunately, this thing is a total piece of crap and waste of your money. id abandoned my original application (described below) long ago, and just tried to use it as a timer on a floor lamp in my bedroom. what a joke. even running a simply daily schedule (Rule) the Wemo may or may not turn on/off the light. whats worse, recently its begun turning ON the light at random—as in, in _the middle of the night_ i awaken to this light the Wemo has inexplicably turned on for no reason!! ive installed the latest firmware, restored the Wemo to factory defaults via a hard reset, and deleted and reinstalled the iOS app... nothing fixes the problem(s). if you thought Wemo might be the answer to your (modest) home automation aspirations, think again and look elsewhere. your money is far better spent on an inexpensive—and RELIABLE—digital timer. (ive bought four more of them since first buying this POS Wemo.) please, Belkin: stick to cables. ORIGINAL REVIEW: as a gadget guy, i thought this would be brilliant... not so much. i tried to use it with my wifes grow lights she uses for germinating seedlings in spring: its 3 sets of 100W fluorescent tubes—300W in total... far, far below the WeMos 15A rating (1800W max load on 120V line voltage)—plugged into a power strip which i then plugged into the WeMo. the WeMo only works if ONE set of lights is on. anything more and it turns on and immediately shuts off. after an hour + with Belkin phone support, repeating the SAME information over and over to the SAME rep (who still failed to understand) they tried to blame it on the power strip (which works fine with all 3 lights when plugged directly into the wall). so i checked the brand of power strip at the reps request: lo and behold, its a Belkin too!! what a joke. in the end, i got a case # and a promise of a call-back which never happened. went to the hardware store and bought a digital timer for $10—works perfectly. Belkin has a long way to go with WeMo. god forbid anyone plugs a space heater into this ticking time bomb.

Purchased and returned. Both the app and the device are buggy. Generally speaking its fine if you dont need to rely on rules. Turn on the device from the app...it works. Use Amazon echo integration to turn it on/off... its great. When it came to rules it completely failed. If you setup anything more advanced than once on a day on once off it seems to falter. It would miss rules completely, turn on a device a minute or two before it was scheduled to turn off. The simple fact is you cant rely that it will turn on when you want it to. Support has no interest in actually communicating what the issue is or work-around. They will just tell you to reset the device and try again. Ive had it in states where it was executing rules that the app said it didnt have. Until they solve their firmware issues it comes to a situation where each time you edit/change the rules (including disable/enable) you will need to test that the rules function and possibly reset the device and add the rules all over again and then test again. Every time you use it for away mode... That is just poor product and not reliable. I tested on the firmware that shipped and on the latest downloadable. After two weeks of frustration I returned. I will not pursue seeing how it matures down the road because. It says something about the company and their willingness to fix issues. Its in both firmware version I tried and appears to be a problem that has been around for some time from the research I did. Its good concept held back by poor execution and the company does not value a solid product as much as market timing.

Managed to a few more Wemo switches while they were on sale - I already have a few around my apartment and are so easy to control via the WEMO app or IFTTT app for extra features. One is plugged into my air conditioner and will automatically turn on when I am a few minutes from home thanks to the location detector on the iPhone (Download the free IF by IFTTT app) there is also great Android support too. You can also add timers through the IF app so you can have your lamp turn on at a certain time each day or just remotely turn it on/off through the Wemo app. The Insight switch gives extra features through the Wemo app including the power usage and estimated average cost - it works outside the home so you can check easily if you accidentally left a device switched on and just with a tap can turn it off. These switches are also fully compatible with Amazon Echo to switch on and off devices - I can now turn on my bedroom lamp before entering the room.

Update (Feb 2014): turns out WeMo is totally insecure, anyone on the internet could control your devices because of multiple vulnerabilities in the software. See [...] (scroll down halfway). Im now giving it one star since its not acceptable to have such low security, and since Belkin hasnt reacted to the problems (apparently they were notified in October 2013 but havent reacted). Original review: I would love to love this product because it promises to do exactly what I need it for: easy Wifi control (and automated control) of anything you can plug into a standard outlet. And, sometimes, it does exactly that. Setup is reasonably easy. But there are too many glitches for it to be practical. The app starts way too slowly (taking 10-30 seconds to show you your devices so you can turn on/off one of them). Timed events sometimes simply dont work. Wifi reception is weak (in a spot where my phone showed 3 bars of Wifi, the Wemo never connected). Its not possible to control from multiple phones. Operations fail randomly half the time (on a perfectly fine Wifi network where no other device has connectivity problems). Bottom line: I kept it for one application (turn on/off central heating when on vacation) because I rarely need to use it for that, so that spending a minute to get a working on/off button on my phone is ok). I intended it to control some lights, but its just not usable for that. Too bad companies like Belkin dont spend more on writing and testing software.

Easy setup, schedule is great, works as advertised with iOS. Setup: It was four steps. I dont think the first two should even count. 1: Plug it in. 2: Down and install app on your device 3: On your phone, select the wifi created by Wemo 4: Launch the app and follow instructions. The only issues I could imagine would be caused by poor wifi, or failing to select the wifi created by WeMo for setup. I kept my phone close to it for setup since I figured it wouldnt make a powerful wifi. Then I moved them where I needed including one outside in my shed. Now I use two of them to run my landscape lights and a lamp. I love that the schedule includes a sunrise/sunset that takes into account your location. It can also be set to turn on/off some period of time before or after sunrise/sunset. Ive used them for a few weeks and havent needed to touch them since the setup.

I purchased a WeMo switch on its own some time ago and six months ago Costco had a deal on a Belkin Netcam HD+ with WeMo switch. Ive actually went the route of plugging the Netcams into the WeMo switch so I could time when the cameras were functional during the day. (ie: out of the house then house cameras turn on. Garage camera shuts off for a minute daily to reset) In addition to this I did install a WeMo light switch to control some porch lights. Belkin definitely has issues with their firmware updates. At times the device will seem like its completely blown away. When this has happened Ive just left it sit out of frustration and have come back to it an hour later, it was fine at that point. Other times Ive had to reset at which point sometimes it signs back onto my network and wants to do the firmware update again like nothing happened and other times (though less and less frequently now) Ive had to completely reconfigure the switch. I have not messed with motion detection on the cameras ... But Im thinking about doing that soon for the garage. Motion in the garage == lights on in garage :) IFTTT integration can be a little iffy .... Ill explain below The additional Wemo switch I have I wasnt sure what to do with so I plugged it into our washer/dryer combo to see when it turns off and send a notification. That seems to work well .... If youre having the notification done through the WeMo app. If you link that through IFTTT youll get that notification about an hour later. Since our washing machine drains into a washing tub there are times where that will overflow. I plan to get a moisture sensor at some point set to cut off power to the washing machine wemo switch if it detects an overflow. Looks like Belkin isnt planning on offering one that I can see so it would need to be something else tied to IFTTT. Something like that I would trust the IFTTT integration to handle even with a 10-60 second delay. The switch that controls porch lights controls an outlet and works perfectly for that. Theres also a light fixture that I stuck a Philips Hue bulb in. I set it up so when the switch is tapped it would tell IFTTT to turn the bulb on to a specific brightness and color and when the switch is tapped off it would turn that light off. That works well with about a 10-20 second delay which I find reasonable considering the trip the command has to take. All in all Im mostly happy and will be adding more WeMo devices to our home for various purposes.

I use my WeMo Insight Switch to control my space heater and its also paired with my Amazon Echo. Very simple set up process, anyone over the age of 8 could probably set this up and pair it with the Echo. At $50 each, I cant afford too many of them, but the one I do have is worth the $50, in my opinion. If youre considering the regular switch verses the insight switch, Id recommend to go with the insight switch, as it gives you great detail on your energy usage and allows you to set up rules. I personally have my space heater turn off after 15 minutes (so I dont burn the house down) and since its paired with my echo, if its cold at night Ill tell Alexa to turn on the space heater and I know it turns off after 15 minutes. Only complaint I would have is the switch takes up a lot of space, which causes me to lose one outlet off the power strip. But overall this is a great product and I would buy again.