Remote-Outlet

Monthly Archive: November 2013

A Bit Bulky, But Otherwise Fantastic

The only downside seems to be how bulky they are. If you aren’t able to plug it into the top outlet (if your outlet was installed upside down or you lack room above the outlet due to furniture or whatever) it will cover the entire outlet because of just how big they are. Other than that, they’ve been great and have done exactly what I wanted them to.

So, the outlet we use for lights is behind our couch. So, each night they must be unplugged and it has become a hassle, as we age. These sockets will allow us to turn those pretty lights off/on with no problems at all. I’m quite sure we’ll find two more outlets that will aid us in turning things off/on. They got here in good time and they do what they say they do. I would use this company again. This is a GREAT price for these three. Get them, you will NOT be disappointed.

It was a small inconvenience but it just bothered me every time I had to fish around for the knob. This gadget made my life a lot easier. The buttons don’t feel sturdy but I haven’t had one problem. I just wish they weren’t so bulky.

I don’t have a pool table light but i do have a plug on the roof, so, I pluged in a spotlight and aimed it at the table for now…cheap a i know but instead of climbing up there over and over I use this remote and wa-la. Also use it to turn on a lamp in the bedroom….and the 3rd I’m using it for a water fountain in the backyard. Remote works awesome even through walls.

Can’t beat the price for a great little automation gizmo. Wife loves it – we can light up the counter in the kitchen and 2 Curio cabinets with them. Everyone who’s seen it says they want to get one (and have).

I suffer from SAD Seasonal Affective Disorder during the winter months, so I add lots of light to my living space. If you are a renter, you are unable to (or it would be disadvantageous to) install lighting, so your only other option is to purchase plug ins which is while these bad boys are so darn handy! Simple set up. Lights controlled by a remotes within minutes!

I park my diesel some 100 feet from the house and I can remotely open my garage door, and because of the in use indicator light, turn my engine block heater on/off without having to endure the inclement weather. Used the others around the house…….too cool.

The devices make a clicking noise but only when the button is pressed so that is perfectly fine. The units themselves are rather large, but that is to be expected given the Amperage rating. I would/will be buying another set because these are so convenient for turning lamps on and off.

November 24, 2013 Outlet, , 0 Read more >

Very Glad to Have This Product

It is very easy to install and use. Only one negative I think it has is, no local switch on module. I would recommend to consider this point. Because if you do not have access to remote, you will end up switching the power off to the module. Instead, if it had a local switch on it, it would have been better.

This is not an issue with this set, one press of the remote and the module turns on / off my devises, good range, easy to use, better current rating, 10 amp / 1200 watts verses my other set which was 5 amp / 600 watts. Two remotes add convience, if I forget to turn off a light, she can turn it off with her own remote.

I’m surprised at how quickly the unit showed up [2 days] since I only picked standard delivery. I’m using two of the outlets for the string lights and the other for my LED projector. I was tired of reaching up to push the power button to turn it on and off. I’d order this again to use for seasonal lighting, but I might end up controlling my existing set! I will at least recommend the product.

I’m visually handicapped, and I have three plug-in lights in various corners of the room that I call my office at home. One light is a long stretch to turn on, one has the switch lying on the floor (in-cord switch), and one is one the back corner of my desk and I have to reach over my sound speakers and control to get at the in-cord switch.

At first I was upset since I couldn’t find the battery, but my wife spied it in a corner of the box. Very small, an odd battery type, I’m very glad I bought the 3-pack WITH the battery included. The remote has a small door (typical for battery-operated devices) that we couldn’t find at first and was very hard to open, but once I managed to slide it open it worked smoothly after that.

So now I have a little (about the size of one of those big packs of chewing gum) control sitting on a corner of my desk. The 3 outlet controls are numbered, so all I have to do is remember 1 is the corner, 2 is the floor lamp, 3 is my desk lamp … and voila!

A few drawbacks that keep me from rating this as a five.

#1: The instructions should state exactly what the battery is. When I need to replace this battery I plan to bring the entire remote along to one of those battery stores and just show it to them. But I’d appreciate more info about it.

#2: The battery cover was VERY hard to slide off (and I have huge strong hands).

#3: The three remote boxes (in my opinion unnecessarily) cover BOTH of the outlets when plugged in. It would be much nicer if the prongs were on one end of the box, so I could plug something else into another outlet. In one case I needed to use a small extension cord to make everything work.

#4: My obsessive tidiness doesn’t like having the remote just floating around. I really wish it came with a holder or something I could have screwed into the wall near the door to the room.

HOWEVER … it does exactly what I wanted it to. I’m already thinking I’d like to get another one for another area of the house, and I’m wondering if they operate on different frequencies or something so they wouldn’t interfere with each other.

November 23, 2013 Outlet, , , , , 0 Read more >

Easy to Use & Affordable

I wanted to place one remote in the dark and scary hallway for my kids to press on the way to their bedroom, and the the other remote right next to their bed so they can turn off the lights from the safety of their bed. They would especially like button #4 which turns all 3 light on all at once.

The rep informed me that this was not possible because the two remotes used different frequencies, and you couldn’t have socket associated with more then 3 frequencies (buttons). This is when I got pleasantly surprised. The rep offered to send me a remote that matched the frequencies of one of the remotes I already had. He explained that one remote had a number on the back, the other remote had no number. He would be sending me a duplicate remote in essence for the one without a number on the back – at no extra charge! He sent it USPS First Class. I reprogrammed the matching remote, and the one he sent me duplicated the programmed remote without any additional programming.

I was disappointed it uses strange batteries (12v A23) instead of the standard ones that the original non-learning remotes use, but I read they are smaller and provide more power for this type of application. I just ordered a five-pack of them on Amazon for under $7 and stuck them in my spare batteries drawer.

My kids are super happy campers and I am a happy parent, and now loyal customer of Etekcity. All companies should treat their customers this way.

Couldn’t be any more happy with a single product. My wife’s mother who is old, a drunk and obviously deaf and annoying has nothing better to do than to blast the TV 24 hrs a day; so this product not only allows me to shut the TV off but also all the power going to the TV so I’m the only one who can turn it on. I actually get a kick out if it because she’ll just sit there literally for hrs watching a blank screen in anticipation of the TV fixing itself. Which it does after I wake up from a good nights rest.

I gave it only 4 stars because Wireless Controlled Electrical Switch Socket Outlet are huge! its as big as your regular outlet plate. I thought they were smaller than the others but I was mistaken. I consedered returning it but it works very well and a little inconvenience because its huge doesn’t matter to me. Lucky that we have a lot of outlet in our home that I didnt need any extension wire. The shipping was fast by the way.

November 22, 2013 Outlet, , , 0 Read more >

Best And Most Used Product In My House

I use this remote to control the lights in our bedroom, so far I have used two out of three and both remotes works well. I also want to credit the manufacturer for including a battery in the remote controller and saying so in it’s description of the product. I had a remote, different brand, the same packaging, three socket oulets and one remote. Two out of the three remote socket oulets failed in just over a year. So I am keeping my fingers crossed how long this brand would last.

I didn’t have any issues with the battery compartment on the remote, as some of the other reviewers did, and I’m not trying to control anything through the wall so range hasn’t been an issue. My biggest complaint is that the outlet boxes are obscenely large, and the plug is oriented such that if you’re plugging this directly into a wall socket, it will block both outlets. Also note that they require 3-prong outlets, so if you’re thinking about using a multitap extension cord, it will have to be 3-pronged as well. This may work best plugged into something like a PowerSquid.

The only draw back for this particular style is that the units are very large. They have been used daily for many months now and have worked beautifully. Some reviews mentioned the difficulty in putting in the batteries and I would have to agree.

The newer models allow you to program each socket to respond to any of the buttons on the two remotes provided. The instructions that came with the device are very poorly written. Poor English in some cases and incomplete instructions. There is no explanation of how to ‘un-program’ a button, and I was finding it impossible to get the two remotes to replicate one another. In some applications you want to program the remotes to control different devices, but in what I believe is the more common application you want the remotes to functional identically. If I program button number 1 on remote A, I want button number 1 on remote B to control the same socket. I would setup one remote, and then when I went to duplicate the process for the second remote some of the buttons stopped working on the first remote and vice-versa.

I reached out to customer support via email and got a quick response. The customer service rep (Tyler) was very helpful and informed me that each socket can only remember up to 3 buttons. So as soon as I tried programming a 4th button to a socket that had already been associated with 3 other buttons, it removed the association for one of the 3 previous buttons. Each button sends out a specific frequency. 5 different frequencies for buttons 1-5 on remote A, and another 5 frequencies for each of the buttons on remote B.

I explained that this is the setup I wanted, and that I wanted all buttons on both remotes A and B to behave identically. They are all hooked up to various lamps in my kids’ bedroom.

November 21, 2013 Outlet, , , , , 0 Read more >

Does The Trick!

I actually searched for clapper and came across this thing. I thought a clapper was tacky, but wanted a solution to turning on the bedroom light without walking across the room in the dark. And this works great!

The switch isn’t really a switch, more of a button. But I don’t mind at all. It looks like a light switch, so it gets the job done. Easily worth the price.

Solve elegantly a lot of problems like switch too far, unreachable or no switch at all. I have three of them and I gave a lot of them as gifts to elderly parents who love them and use them even to turn on and off their night lights or their fans. However, if Westek had provide us with a way to tweak the frequency at will, we wouldn’t be stuck when we mistakenly buy two same frequency wireless switches.

I used two sided tape to mount the switch. The switch and the plug are only about 10 feet apart, but it works perfectly. The light switch is really just two buttons. both the top and bottom will turn it either on or off.

I use this to activate a lamp on an end table that is too far to reach from the couch. The switch just sits on my coffee table so I can flip it on or off easily. I use it constantly and have had zero problems (knock wood).

Am here getting another one for a bedside lamp. Hoping I have no crossed frequency issues.

It works great! I used command strips to attach it to the wall because I live in an apartment. One thing I didn’t see on any instructions was that you have to take the screws off the front plate in order to activate the battery inside. I did this with my fingernail so it wasn’t difficult, I just didn’t realize I needed to do it. I would definitely order another one of these in the future!

My electrician actually recommended these devices! Plug them in, stick it on the wall and “voila”, The one we had would turn off when the refrigerator motor would kick on or the a/c, etc. It was driving us nuts. It was a larger switch too. This one works great and the box is less bulky.

I am using this in a home automation project so I needed an on command AND an off command. The buttons on this remote are made to look like they are on and off, but they are only one button. This means it only sends one signal. The outlet just switches state when it receives a signal.

if you want this get it it is the best outlet controler i have ever had.i love it. i dont just use it for turning stuff on and off i also use it for pranling people:p i also like how this has this has a switch on the device its self so you dont have to use the remote an inch away. so i think you should get it i love it and i hope you love it.

November 20, 2013 Outlet, , , 0 Read more >

Will Control Fluorescent And LED Lights As Well

Bought one of these, put the on/off switch on the wall as you head down the hall and now it’s so easy to turn it on and off. Then, recently, I had trouble with my knee and found myself in the recliner quite a bit. Had to call hubby to turn on the light on the end table. Bought another one of these, attached the on/off switch on the side of the end table with Velcro and now I just reach down and flip it to turn on the lamp. What more could you want?

The package states that it will control fluorescent, LED and incandescent.

The package also states it will control, “lights, TVs, Audio components and Small appliances”, “Appliances up to 960 watts – 8 amps”, “Battery lasts up to 2-3 years under normal use”, I only wish there was a way to choose your frequency. I guess you get the luck of the draw. I may have to go to Home Depot if I want to buy another, so I can see which one I am buying.

It works great, but every once in awhile the connections get “crossed”…I will use the switch for my lamp and it will turn on my fan, or vice versa. It’s a small annoyance for a great product though. I tend to get hot and cold a lot so I find it very useful to have a switch by my bed that turns the fan off and on. I also use two for lamps where the lamp switch is a little too far away for me to reach easily. And they are also great at Christmas time for your tree lights. I would sugget this would be great for the elderly too….my grandma had trouble seeing and reaching for the lamp switch, so I offered to give her one of these switches where she could keep it right in front of her. I like the toggle switch too rather than a regular one because it’s so easy.

This was a great solution. Some complain about the screws on the switch plate cover, but they worked fine for me. Remember they are decorative and are plastic so you don’t over-tighten.

The switch on my wall operated an outlet. That outlet is immediately next to the switch. This didnt work for me. I have my lights in the back of the room. Then I stumbled across this gem. Just plug it in and attach the switch to the wall and you got yourself a solution.

Before I had to walk in the room in the dark, feel around for the lamp, then the switch to turn it on. Now I can do it as I walk into the room. Great little device.

I used double sided tape to mount the switch on the wall instead of drilling holes to attach it (and I doubt that I’m the only one who would do that, so perhaps that option should be included). I expected a slight delay in the operation of the switched unit (in my case a wall light), but to my pleasure, it comes on instantly, much like an actual wall switch. These are a good option for some less expensive homes that were built without any switched power in, say, the bedrooms. But, since they’re sold with no regard to frequency (at Amazon anyway)(I think there are like 6 frequencies available), I’ve decided that if I wanted to use a number a these in adjacent rooms, I’d just buy a bunch, pick out the ones with different frequencies, and send the rest back (this should avoid turning on every light with same frequency since the range is fairly impressive). It’s a poor way to get what you need, and I’m sure would/does drive up costs for the seller, so perhaps they should rethink the “frequency shipped at random” model.

November 19, 2013 Outlet, , , 0 Read more >