Daily Archive: November 14, 2013

Works Flawlessly – Style Looks A Bit Cheap

I liked that this unit has a remote switch that I can access easily to turn off my multiple monitors at once instead of turning them off individually or crawling under the desk to flip the surge protectors switch. It also has a couple of constant-on recepticals to power items whether or not the switch is flipped.

The switch looks a little odd, but probably as good as it can given the form factor. Signal strength is quite good — a brick wall and a washing machine are in between one of the plugs and its switch. As noted by other reviewers, there are no separate “on” or “off” directions. Pushing the switch on either side simply toggles the power.

Our house was built with no wall switches in the bedrooms and we were thrilled to find these. They’ve actually gone down in price since we bought ours. They work perfectly and we’ve never had a problem.

However, as another reviewer said, it has only two different frequencies, and the frequency is NOT selectable. When you buy, you must specify either the “A” or “B” frequency switch. The package is labeled such. Don’t get two of the same frequency within range of each other! Oh, and the switch and control block do not look like what is pictured. The control block is bigger and the switch (as mentioned in the other review) is a rocker, not a traditional toggle as pictured.

It has a one-piece rocker switch/plate cover that looks like it could break easily. However, I’ve had mine for about 2 years so far and it’s still intact.

This unit has three channels, so you can have up to three different sets of these in your home. In my living room, I have two sets, both on the same channel, controlling two lamps across the room from each other. Since they’re both on the same channel, either transmitter can turn on or off both lights (kind of like three-way switching for multiple lamps).

The rocker switch makes it seem like you’d press up for on and down for off. However, it’s just a toggle switch — there’s no difference between up or down.

Leviton makes a more-attractive switch (although they only sell the almond color here on Amazon). It resembles a regular hard-wired rocker switch commonly found in homes. However, it only has two channels (so you could only have two sets of these in your home), and it’s VERY tempermental. It will randomly switch off and sometimes constantly switch off — very annoying.

I would like to see X10 come out with one of these devices, but their controllers resemble remote controls too much. They need one that looks like a regular wall switch. So why X10? First it can handle 256 channels — not just two or three. Second, it can integrate with your PC for home automation. Third, it costs about the same as one of these other more-basic models.