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

I bought this switch because the Wemo line was discounted for a day on Amazon. It works fairly well - sometimes the action is delayed. Setting it up was easy enough and pairing it with IFTTT has added some neat features. But the energy features of this switch (which make it cost $10 more than the regular switch) are worthless eye candy. Save yourself some money and by the Wemo Switch. Better still, buy the SmartThings Know & Control Your Home kit - better, quicker, more reliable. *** Also... *** This switch often doesnt have the same third party capabilities as the regular Wemo Switch. For example, if you use SmartThings, they support every product EXCEPT the Wemo Insight Switch with their app development environment (SmartThings Labs). Additionally, the recipes at IFTTT for the regular switch far outnumber the recipes for the Wemo Insight Switch.

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.

It works.. Finally. Replaced an unreliable mechanical timer for a fish tank light. Took two stars away, because: a) I had a problematic set up; b) You can only configure using a mobile device; c) Android software needs some additional development work: slow, UI didnt size well and not supported on all versions,. To set up: 1) You download a free, store application. 2) Device creates its own wireless network when you first plug in / reset it. 3) You then connect to that wireless network with your device and open that application, 4) In the application you provide configuration information about your current real wireless network. 5) Things then disconnect and the plug should reboot. 6) When your device connects again to your regular wireless network, the application displays your new device in a list view. In my case it would silently time out between the 5th & 6th step. Very frustrating. I spent an evening with many retries and no success. I was running an Android tablet w/ JellyBean. So on a hunch, I blew away my device and spent half a day re-flashing to Kit Kat and setting it up again. Once I did that, the software worked! So warning: if you plan to use an Android device - make sure its recent build. Also, while we are on that point, why the heck cant this be a built in web page, like many routers? I dislike being trapped into use a mobile device to configure. Nest Protect did the same thing. I hope this doesnt become a standard in the smart home of the future.

I bought this because I have an Amazon Echo. Upon further research, this was the one that worked best for me because I liked that it had more recipes that worked in conjunction with Echo on IFTTT than other current brands. Heres what I noticed: Its not too suited to control a light/lamp. You know why? If youre walking around in the middle of the night and your Wemo Insight Switch is located somewhere near your feet where your light is plugged into, youre going to have to feel around for the Wemos switch. Even with Echo, its inconvenient because if you dont want to wake everyone up by calling to Echo, youre going to have to feel for that Wemo switch in the dark or take your phone literally EVERYWHERE with you so you can turn on the light with your phone. Now, what if your wifi goes down? If your Wemo Insight Switch is somewhere quite out of reach, youre going to have to really reach for it - so if youre in the dark... lol. My recommendation is to use this on other things that you may want to control power with. Its feature is that it keeps track of how much time you use on it and how much wattage is used. Im not very creative, so I dont know what that leaves for you to use this Wemo Insight Switch with. lol. However, if you dont know how to install a Wemo Light Switch on your wall or if your house is fitted with 3-way light switches instead of single-poles, this (and others like this) is really the only alternative for you. Dont get me wrong though. There is nothing wrong with the Wemo Insight Switch. In fact, its amazing! I love how convenient it is. Once I find other things (besides my light) I can use this with, Ill be able to track the power wattage used, set when to automatically turn it on or off (like when Im on vacation and need to set it for the cats or just to make it look like Im home), or just move it around and use it with different appliances simply by plugging and unplugging it. If youre using this with Echo, theres an additional feature now (accessible from Echos app) - you can set it to turn your appliances/light on or off when it detects you leaving and arriving home! It does this with your phones location services. Pretty neat, huh? Loving my semi-automated home more and more. :)

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.

UPDATE December 2014. Several more software and firmware updates (10.1.1 latest) and the product is now working as expected and deserves 5 stars. 99%+ the phone app works to connect (quickly) to devices and control. Insight is still a tad slower. We now have 7 different WeMo products and all are working very well. I wish I didnt have to go through the months of agony when we first got them. The current functionality is excellent. Working very well on both iPhone 5 and 6. UPDATE September 2014. In the last two weeks, Belkin has provided two iOS updates (1.8.X) and one or two firmware updates. The connectivity issues are nearly gone now. As I suspected, the issue was with the iPhone app that couldnt connect 8 times out of ten. With the new updates, connectivity is very fast and pretty reliable. Im still only giving the product 4 starts out of five for the months and months of issues I had with the product. The software is still not perfect with the Insight switches in terms of getting the update of data used, time on etc, but turning on and off all switches is now nearly instant as it should have been back in May of 2014 when I first purchased the products. Hopefully this new behavior will remain and I can now be happy with the product. ORIGINAL REVIEW: This generous 1 star is for the WeMo Insight switch. I also have two of the Light switches and one of the older plug-in units which would rate maybe 3.5 to four stars. The Insight is pretty much a piece of junk. I purchased two in May of 2014 and have had nothing but problems with them. In fact, Ive had to send both back to WeMo for replacement, one is due to arrive tomorrow. In a nutshell, the WiFi connectively with this product is simply awful. More than half the time, the silly device doesnt show up on the iPhone or iPad. Quit the app, reboot the phone, try using the Airport utility as recommended, no amount of fuzing around gets the unit to show up. Its just easier to walk to the device and manually turn the unit on and off. Belkin support has ranged from just awful to decent. Getting the last unit replaced due to its inability to be reset and then send out a signal was pretty bad. I had to keep calling and calling to finally get an RMA. The other two light switches and the one original switch work pretty well but not perfectly. At first I blamed their app which is pretty awful at updating itself. Then two Insight switches just flat out failed. Do not buy one! Try the other lesser expensive switch first and understand that the WeMo app is not very good. My wife and I have a good wireless network, weve got Airport Expresses (newer units) to extend the range, that didnt do a thing to fix the issues with the phone app and the Insights from communicating. The time Ive wasted with Belkin support, frustration trying to get the switch to operate isnt worth it, Ill just get up and do this myself with far less issues. Too bad because when the unit works, it is pretty slick. If it actuall worked 50% of the time, Id be in better shape than I am now, the Insight fails far more often than it works.

It is a very nice product. It is easy to set up, nice app, BUT when the power goes off it stays off and does not reset. The items I want to monitor power on tend to be appliances like the heater, furnace and refrigerator. In the several months I have had it I on the furnace I have gotten home 3 times, and woke up once, to a very cold house. I deducted a star for every two times the house was cold. It has been in the single numbers and teens most of the winter so the house gets cold fast and takes hours to warm up. Power glitches seem rare but even very short ones, so short they do not reset our clocks, will reset this device. Also very short outages do not send a disconnected email. If it did you would see it and turn it back on.

I bought two of these to solve a problem I was having where I needed to turn one item off when another stopped pulling as much current though it would keep pulling some. I hooked one to each item and set up some skills in IFTTT to control them. When switch A goes into on mode, so does switch B. The problem arises when trying to turn them off. For some reason IFTTT doesnt let you turn off switch B when switch A goes into standby mode. I emailed customer support and was basically given the runaround. To get around this I set up a Twitter account and had IFTTT tweet something with a certain hashtag when switch A goes into standby and then set up another skill to turn off switch B if a new tweet comes through with that hashtag. It works, though there is a bit of a delay. If either WeMos built in actions were a little more advanced or IFTTT could handle turning off one switch when another goes into standby, Id give this 5 stars. If you just want to control something with your phone, IFTTT, or something like Alexa, this product works great.

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.

I bought the WeMo Insight Switch on a whim when it was on sale, then a Motion Sensor + Switch bundle later, so these are the products Im writing about (the Amazon page appears to mix reviews for all WeMo products). PROS * Works entirely with WiFi; does not require a special hub like some home-automation systems do * Aesthetically pleasing hardware design * Easy to integreate with other WeMo products (e.g., make Motion Sensor control a Switch) * App can be configured for remote access to control of devices when you are away from your home network * Does not rely on Internet connection CONS * Somewhat high (~1.5W) power usage per WeMo device when idle, presumably to keep WiFi radio powered * No API (except via Android and iOS SDKs) * Sometimes difficult to integreate with other products I ended up returning the Switch+Motion combo, followed closely by the Insight Switch. My biggest reason for returning the Switch+Motion bundle is that I couldnt make the Motion product do much besides control the Switch. This is fine if your house is entirely WeMo, but I was hoping to integrate it with my Philips Hue bulbs and couldnt. (I could, actually, with some third-party help: plug in a Switch for nothing, just to be there, then tell Motion to turn on or off the Switch with motion or after a certain period of inactivity, then use IFTTT with a trigger that fires when the Switch is turned off and an action that turns off Hue. This could be simplified a bit if IFTTT had a trigger for lack of motion like the WeMo app does, but it doesnt, and the whole setup is still a bit convoluted.) For developers or others who may want to tinker, this product lacks an easily accessible API (Hue, by contrast, is exposed via HTTP and controllable via REST commands). They offer SDKs for Android and iOS, so it appears the only option for customization is writing your own app. There is also not a Web interface, so the app (theirs or a third-party one made with the SDK) is really the only way to control these. This wont matter much to most people, but I like to customize some things have depended on this with other products before. As previously stated, all WeMo products use WiFi to communicate, which is an advantage in that you do not need a special hub like you do with, for example, Hue (execpt Belkins recently announced light bulbs need a hub, too); you can just use your existing WiFi network. However, it has a couple disadvantages: first, all devices need to be within range of your WiFi signal to be controllable, which was never a problem for me but may be for other people. Second, WiFi is more power-hungry than other wireless technologies typically used for home automation (e.g., ZigBee or Z-Wave). I suspect well never have battery-powered WeMo devices for this reason. My Switch, Insight Switch, and Motion Detector each ate up about 1.5 W just sitting there idle, which is 3-5 times higher than similar ZigBee and Z-Wave devices Ive tried (and ZigBee and Z-Wave devices that take batteries usually use even less power in that case beacuse they dont extend the network theyre on, which is something they usually do and exposes another one of their advantages: a possibly greater range). My suggestions: * If you only want a couple WeMo devices, WeMo may work well. Id be hesitant to fill a house with them because they use significantly more power than comparable alternatives, but with only a couple its (a) probably not a big difference, and (b) probably cheaper in that all you need is the WeMo device and a WiFi network (and the Android or iOS app), so you wont have to buy or configure a special hub. * If you dont already have a lot of WeMo products but think you might want a lot, Id suggest another solution that may lend itself to less power consumption and better integration with other systems. Personally, Ive returned all my WeMo products and switched over to SmartThings, which offers compatiblity with many ZigBee and Z-Wave controllable switches and sensors. (It does require a hub, but I think the tradeoff is worth it. Unfortunately, SmartThings is also heavily relaint on the Internet at the moment, but they claim to be working on that.) SmartThings can integrate with WeMo, but I swapped my devices (switch and motion sensor, at least) anyway because I wanted the ZigBee advantages Ive mentioned. * If you only want the Insight Switch and you only want it to know the power consumption of your devices, consider a Kill-A-Watt instead (thats how I determined the surprising amount of power WeMo devices consume even when idle). My luck with the products Ive used hasnt been as bad as others, and everything seemed to work well when I tried. My biggest problem was the lack of customization options, but there are other minor issues as well as I mentioned that also fueled my desire to seek alternatives. Still, for the average user who only wants maybe one or a few WeMo devices, I think it may work well.