WiOn 50049 Outdoor Wi-Fi Wireless Plug-In Switch; Smartphone And Tablet Automation For Up To 12 Devices 2 Grounded Outlets Weather Resistant Energy Saving Wifi Controlled Switch

I purchased three of these as single devices since they were out of the bundle pack and received them yesterday. They were easy to connect to Alexa and have a pretty good wifi range. I am using them for Christmas lights and it makes it very convenient to turn them on and off with Alexa instead of the old wireless remote devices I had. The batteries for the old ones were $5-6 each. The only two things I would ask for is to add the usage functionality to them as the competitors have and to add it to the IFTTT app. With IFTTT, you can trigger the devices to turn on and off at sunset and sunrise, just like the competitors do. I bought these for price and function since the competitors dont seem to have an outdoor unit available. It seems like a great product.

I have two of these. One for outdoor lights, the other for a water fountain. Every day they come in, every day at the set time, they turn off. You loose power and restore, and all settings stay saved. If you would like to manually turn them ON or OFF, just open the app and tap the button. It is a head turner on any back yard party!!! I WOULD BUY IT AGAIN AND RECOMMEND ANYTIME!

This is the second Wion outdoor plug I purchased. Over 1 year ago the first one installed with out a hitch and works great. The timer function (dusk to dawn with 20 minute offsets) is easy to set up. The distance it receives the wifi signal is impressive - it is mounted on my dock and easily picks up the WIFI signal from the house more than 100 feet away. The second one was a nightmare to set up. First I had the problem with naming the plug with a name longer the 5 characters. Thanks to all the Amazon reviews I figured that out. Next I used different amazon account for each plug because I forgot which account I used on the first plug 1 year ago. Even with that mistake, the WION app found both plugs but Alexa could only find one plug. The fix was easy, put both plugs on the same amazon account in the WION app. Next I disabled the WION skill in the Alexa App, then I re-enabled the skill and signed on to the Amazon account. Then Alexa was able to find both plugs. I normally would not give 5 stars to something with such limited customer support - but these are well engineered and easy to set up if you dont use a name longer than 5 characters and make the mistake of using two different amazon accounts. I have smart home devices from Leviton, iHome, Insignia(Best Buy), Amazon brand, Ecobee, and others. I think these plugs are some of the best designed, best operating and easy to install. Its too bad the traps in setup are only documented in Amazon reviews ...

Works great for our outdoor lights. Only downside is if the wifi goes out, its a bit of a pain to reconnect this unit. Itd be nice to just have it remember the network and rejoin itself. The WiOn app is easy to use, and this units been running great.

Stopped working after a year.

Edit 2: It seems Southwire / Woods has merely rebranded the ECO Plugs RC-028W. I was able to install the ECO Plugs app from the Google Play store and successfully connect a factory-restored WiOn outlet to my router with it. It took me a few factory resets and forgetting the ECO-serial network on my phone and reconnecting, but the connection eventually succeeded. Although the Woods WiOn app is abandonware, the ECO Plugs app is a passable substitute updated for compatibility with Android 9. Connecting with the ECO Plugs app is quirky, though. A successful connection to the router does not deactivate the plugs temporary wifi access point. --- Edit 1: Beware! The Woods WiOn Android app doesnt fully work on the latest version of Android. It doesnt appear that Woods / Southwire has updated their app in a year and a half. Unless you have access to a device with an older version of Android, you may not be able to get this outlet to connect to your router. The out-of-box router connection dialog simply will not appear as it should when a new outlet is detected, regardless of clearing your phones cache and app data or resetting your outlet back to factory defaults. Maybe the ECO Plugs app would be a suitable workaround? Maybe, but I havent tried it to see. I ended up digging an ancient Android 4.4.2 device out of a drawer to perform the connection to my wireless network. Also, the WiOn products domain seems now to be controlled by a cybersquatter. There is no longer a website available for you to find support or documentation for this outlet. The outlet and its app are abandonware. I emailed Southwire a request for assistance, then followed up with my Android 4.4.2 workaround. If they respond with anything worthwhile, Ill update this review. So far my emails have gone ignored. --- Original review: Rugged, stable network connectivity from the opposite corner of the house and through walls, and Alexa integration is flawless. The WiOn app features above-average flexibility, offering automation with many triggers: time of day, countdown, astronomic, and random vacation timers. It does not offer Google or IFTTT integration, though. Bear in mind that Internet of Things devices such as this are heavily dependent on a reliable router. If youve got a garbage router, dont bother with this or any other IoT / smart home devices until youve upgraded. The Internet of Things tends to expose latent instability in mediocre routers. If youre not running Tomato, DD-WRT, Google Wifi, Ubiquiti, or better, dont blame inexplicable disconnections on your outlets. With OEM router firmware, more often than not, bugs are par for the course.

In short, I am very happy with this purchase and would buy it again. The reason I took off 1 star is that although the outlet works just fine and is reasonably priced, the whole idea of a smart outlet is to be able to be controlled via an app. Since most people will buy this first, then download or even look at the app after receiving it, I thought this might be helpful for people to be aware of the one shortcoming I found. My use case was very simple, though probably fairly common for most people looking for an outdoor smart outlet, controlling Xmas lights. I simply wanted them to go on at sunset, and go off at a predetermined time, like 1am. At least with the Android version of the app for this, it isnt possible. You can do on at sunset, off at sunrise (which seems excessive to have Xmas lights on at 4 am), or you can turn on at a certain time and off at a certain time, but cannot combine the 2. Other than that small issue, everything works fine. It pairs fairly easily, and works like it is supposed to.

These work great; have purchased 3 of them, the first one about 2 years ago, and its still going strong. To be fair, though, I do live in Southern California, so the unit hasnt lived through much rain and moisture, but has stood up well to extreme heat. I have one unit set up with weekend sunrise/sunset timers for our patio string lights; I used another with time on/time off settings for our holiday lights. Gifted the third unit to our neighbors who, every night and morning, were pushing and pulling their holiday lights cord into and out of an outlet; just couldnt bear to see them do it anymore. Only negative is the apps interface, which could use some serious updating and streamlining; its straight outta 2010. However, with the various timer options, its pretty much set-it-and-forget-it, so the app shouldnt be needed after the initial set up. And initial set-up itself was fairly painless; just followed the simple instructions.

Fantastic device, quite easy to set up and it seems to be working reliably after 4 days in use. I am using it to remotely control a pond aerator that requires a very specific on/off schedule. An added benefit of using a WIFI-enabled device in the cloud is that I know the house power and my home wifi network are functioning generally, and also that the aerators circuit has not tripped the GFI. This unit can handle 15 amps and 1000 watts, well above the 1/3 hp 5-amp draw (650 watts) of my pond aerator motor. The WiOn app on my iPhone is easy to use and offers great programming flexibility as well as manual on/off override independent of the time settings.

Bought a few of these years ago and had a good experience. I bought another one to replace one but this one wouldn’t connect. Kept. “Looking for server” so I called customer service and they gave me some bs about “I’m level 2 and this requires a level 5 technician” I know the trick because I called several times and got the same responses. The trick is “when we bump you to level 5, it’s a $55 dollar one time fee”. Makes no sense- that’s more than I paid for the actual device and wreaks of fraud. I asked what they would do and one said they would connect to it and upload a patch to the device. But how can they upload to the device if I can’t connect to the device? Super disappointed and I ended up returning. The other 3 still work so I’m not putting 1 star but buyer beware now