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

I bought my Insight switch used but it was practically brand new. Accurately charts your electricity usage from ONE port. Im guessing you could connect an extension cord to it but I just use it with my main lamp that illuminates my whole room. Im currently using a Cree LED bulb and its gauging my electricity bills for the bulb at $0.16 for a whole year. Not only that, I can turn on/off my lamp with my phone and by pressing the black button on the actual switch. The WeMo app is decent, a lot of people complain that there should be additional widgets. For example, there should just be an app button that looks like a lamp on my home screen, instead of me having to open up the WeMo app, connect to internet, wait for it to load and find devices, then I need to click the power icon next to the device. Its all very time consuming and should be remedied. Comparing this to the standard WeMo switch, I prefer the Insight, but its loads more expensive. If you dont need to track the electricity usage, just get the standard switch. Its a nice feature to have, but I rarely check it. I mainly bought this so I could turn off my lights when Im in bed, and turn on the lights before I walk in the door. Performs as advertised.

I must have good luck or maybe my **NEW** router with the 5G (which i dont think this connects to anyway)has great range and so far I have not had any problems! Review: Its a simple device you plug in , download the Wemo app, connect to your router (there are instructions on screen to help guide you through) The connection IS NOT IMMEDIATE so be patient till it all gets set up. YOU WILL HAVE TO DOWNLOAD AN UPDATE of the FIRMWARE which enables the Wemo plug to work (it will not work straight out of the box) After you enter your password for your router and it connects to your network youre ready to go! The rules (AKA TIMERS) in which you set can have a learning curve because the timers for on and off arent clear cut the way it is for the sun rise sunset timer. If you play with it for a couple of minutes you will get it soon enough. I do not know how many rules/timers you can have, but at this time I have three (3) rules and I have my Wemo plug ***hooked up to a Quirky power pivot*** to give me six (6) plugs instead of JUST the one outlet! SO I can control the ON/OFF times of multiple tablets or phones(or what ever is plugged in at the time) from that one plug! The down side to that is they are all connected together so you CANT control each plug/outlet from your power strip individually BUT so what!!!! You dont have to use it like this you can JUST use the ONE outlet for ONE light or what ever you want plugged into it but I FELT this(plugging a power strip into the Wemo) is better for me and what I am using it for! I have the app downloaded on to 3 separate phones and 1 tablet! All of the rules/timers can be seen and edited from each of your connected phones/tablets and you can add more rules (timers) if you want at any time! You can also use the insight switch manually to turn off and on by lightly pressing the touch on off switch on the plug it self! I have not had any problems with it so far and am pleased with my purchase and what this plug does! I will be looking to buy another down the road.

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. :)

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.

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...

I didnt even try the device, for which I had such high hopes. Belkin appears to have no regard whatsoever to privacy and security. The Android app to control this-- without which the devices are useless-- demands access to ones contact list and-- get this-- your ROUTERS PASSCODE! With this information, Belkin or whoever gets hold of this information (by hacking Belkin? Hacking your phone?), can then access your LAN behind its firewall, and/or SPAM everyone in your contact list. It also demands your Device & app history, so they know ALL your apps, your identiy, your location, access to your phone, your photos, your media files, your camer(!?!?!?), and more. Seriously? Belkin employees could surreptitiously access your phone and eavesdrop on your private conversations or watch you as you do private things, as well as send this info to everyone in your contact list. While I dont doubt that this is not their intentions, there is NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON for such privacy invasion, because a rogue employee could wreak havoc with ones life if appropriate information was disseminated. I know that younger people seem to not understand the consequences of privacy loss or identity theft, so they readily accept such access demands from the apps they enjoy, but I certainly will not, and I recommend everyone else reading this takes a similar stand. iOS devices allow individual blocking of an apps permissions, but Android does not-- its an all/nothing deal. Until enough Android users complain, Android systems will lack this individual feature control. And, while Belkin may give reasons like we need your access list IN CASE you want to share settings with friends, or other sanitized reasons, there is NO VALID REASON to demand access to your personal data like that. So, I am sadly sending these back. It could have been a great product but I will never know, because I refuse unnecessary invasions of my privacy. I have similarly uninstalled any app that makes unreasonable demands. Many want access to ones contact list, so they can sell the data to telemarketers or spam your friends themselves. I will not participate in this. FIGHT BACK! There are other apps/products that allow remote control via the Internet, that do NOT ask for ANY special permissions. Shame on Belkin!

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).

I purchased a selection of these WeMo products to try them out, including the Insight switch, normal switch, motion and wall switch. I also noticed that the last review was a year old, so let me update things a little. First, let me calibrate my point of view: Home automation is like cell phones before the iPhone - crappy industrial design, abysmal user interface/experience/configuration - zero integration of devices and software. Some have tried with home hubs but this is itself an arcane and user unfriendly concept. Into this environment, WeMo today brings a true breath of fresh air. The products are clean designs, work as expected, are packaged and presented clearly so anyone can get them to work. As close to zero configuration as possible. Help is right up front. The applications are only limited by our imaginations, and I look forward to hearing about creative applications. We all know that The Internet of things is the next big wave. The question is, who will lead this wave? I would submit that the model Apple has set - making products truly useful for ordinary people - is the key indicator of future success. In this, WeMo has made a great start and deserves to be recognized. But of course, we are only at the beginning. From my experience with WeMo so far, the things part is working pretty well. Bugs are to be expected. The real question is how fast they are noticed and corrected. The frequent firmware updates speak of a dynamic and energetic development effort. That is a good thing. Software and apps are the next frontier. Of course there is lots of hardware and software yet to be developed - I would like to be able to build an energy profile of my entire home and all the appliances, for example - oh and integrate with (or better yet, provide) my security system. As a consumer, what I need is a company who shares the vision and provides the hardware and software - including access by third party apps - to make it happen. WeMo? Quite possible.

Ive had the original switches for about a year and now the insights. The app software is getting better and that is the real issue. When they connect I have no problems using them. The smaller size and usage info of the insight is a real plus. As the software improves, I expect connectivity to the app to get better. I can see all of my wemo (5) on my network all the time, its just whether the app will. Sometimes my phone sees them all, sometimes my tablet, its still a guessing game. Belkin is making the app better, so Ill keep using them. I only wish there was a way to control through my PC. My using Wi-Fi, they are easy to setup and configure.

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.