Switchmate for Rocker Style Light Switches by SimplySmartHome. SnapOn Smart Light Switch That Listens

I was looking for a way to control the front lights on my house. I have a dual switch and didn't want to replace with a full "smart" solution or deal with re-wiring. For what it cost, the Switchmate is awesome. I now have the lights setup on a schedule so they come on right at sunset and turn off at sunrise. No more forgetting to turn them on or off. Pro's: 1. Easy installation. No need to deal with turning your electricity off, removing old switch and trying to connect a new one. You setup via Bluetooth using the app. 2. Magnets are very strong - the Switchmate is securely attached to the switch with no moving or sliding around. 3. The color matches my existing switch plate and looks good. 4. Price to performance is amazing. Con's: 1. It doesn't look as good as a flush smart switch would have. (but for the price and ease of install it's a sacrifice I'm willing to live with) 2. It only works locally via Bluetooth. No internet control. So if you weren't home you wouldn't be able to turn the lights on or off. 3. No Alexa integration. (apparently you need the Switchmate wall plug for this to work) 4. It says it works with Google Home, but I haven't been able to get Google to recognize it. If you aren't the handiest person in the world, like me, and don't want to deal with being a weekend electrician, this is the next best solution.

Review Update: 01/01/2021 The saga continues... So I was looking at the Switchmate Power to see if I wanted to purchase it anyway, and I guess out of habit I clicked Order instead of Cancel. When I learned of the mistake, I tried to cancel, but it was too late. I'm a believer in second chances, so since I hadn't mailed the Switch back yet, I figured, "Hey, give the system a chance - with the Power unit, it just may be amazingly wonderful!" Wrong. First, the Power (plugs) absolutely refused to connect to my network. This is a network with 32 devices on it, all working perfectly, so I'm not a novice at this stuff. I tried about 20 times, on both the main and guest network. Eventually I turned off Fast Roaming on my mesh, and finally got it to connect. Note that while I'd heard that some devices don't like Fast Roaming, this is the first one I've found that actually has to have it disabled. Another strike. Next I did the full setup and testing with the plugs and the switches and found the performance to be very lacking. Sometimes it wouldn't work at all, sometimes it would work after a delay of up to 30 seconds - which is forever when you're turning on a light in the dark. And sometimes it would work just fine. But it only worked "just fine" when I'd been flipping it on/off several times. After a delay, it always took a long time, if it worked at all. In the process, I found that there is NO WAY to remove your network info from the device once it's in there. Most devices have something like, "Hold down the button 30 seconds to reset". Not this thing! So if I ever did change my SSID or Password, I don't know that I'd ever get it to connect again. Perhaps if the network wasn't there. But if you have a multi-network system (Main/Guest for example) and you want to switch it to the other, good luck! And of course, the final straw was that when I did get it all set up and working, and then tried to get it to work with Alexa, I found that Alexa STILL won't work with it. I set up the skill per instructions, then told her to find the devices, and she came up empty time after time. When I looked at the comments in the skill, people were saying that it used to work, but is no longer supported. So even if you do spend the additional $50 for the plug/hub, you still will not have Alexa functionality. ===== Review Update: 12/31/2020 So with some more testing and use, I've decided to send this back. Here's why: When I first read up on this device, I saw an question about "Does it work with Alexa", and a reply from the company indicating that they were almost completed on that, and it should be out soon. That question was dated in 2017, so I figured they'd finished by now. Then I read a few reviews, and people said it DOES work with Alexa. They were wrong. It does NOT work with Alexa. Period. I cannot even say it works with a phone without nursing it along by manually re-pairing it quite often. And that's from a distance of about 12 feet. Allow me to explain. This device is an ADD-ON to their other device, which is a plug. That plug is WiFi enabled, and has bluetooth capability. Once paired with that plug, *IT* can forward Alexa on/off requests to the switch toggles. Without it, it has NO Alexa capability whatsoever, and likely never will. Furthermore, since the plug stays in one place, once it's paired, it will likely stay paired forever, unlike a phone, which goes in and out of range and will need to re-connect often - and that re-connecting seems to fail. A LOT. Which is why you'll need to re-pair it manually. Once it loses it's connection, it's pairing will not come back without deleting and re-pairing. I suspect the reason for making them bluetooth is that the switches have to work on batteries, and Bluetooth consumes far less power than WiFi. So I understand the reasoning, but I disagree that they should sell these alone. They should clearly market them as ADD-ON devices for their Plug/Hub product. Paying for this item and thinking you get a deal, then finding out you have to shell out another $50 for the plug/hub (which actually comes with a switch anyway) is a complete deal-breaker for me, and I'd imagine most people would agree. Had I known, I might have been willing to live with the Plug/Hub and it's included switch. But marketed this way, it just feels like a fraud, so I'm returning it. ===== Received, Installed, Tested, Reviewed on 12/29/2020 With 30+ home automation devices all set up and working, I like to think I'm at least moderately knowledgeable about these things. Not "expert", but moderate. First the plus. They seem to stick well and flip the switch just fine. For this they get 2 stars instead of 1. Now the reality. These switches are basically crap. First of all, they use bluetooth, and as most people who use BT a lot will tell you, it's NOT the best choice for this sort of work - which is why most devices don't use it. The connection between your phone and the devices is often precarious at best. BT works "okay" between two devices which are either VERY close (under 5') or which once set up, do not move/reorient. All that said, the initial pairing is a pain, stopping in mid-stride to do firmware updates. Once that's done, re-pairing is relatively painless, as there's no update. Just make sure your phone is right next to the device. Once paired, turning them on/off from the phone works fine, when you have a good BT connection and have given it adequate time to pair up again. In a 1-bedroom apartment, I'm NEVER more than about 20' from the devices, so the fact that they keep losing the connection clearly displays how poor the radios are. All that said, I can usually get them to turn on/off after a few tries. BTW, this is using a Pixel 3 XL, which has very good BT in general. WORKING WITH ALEXA: They don't. Period. There's some BS about how they will work if you buy a hub or something, which based on my experience so far, I certainly won't be doing. WORKING WITH GOOGLE: They can, but fail far more often than they succeed. The instructions are wrong (possibly due to GUI changes in Google Home, but if so, they should be updated) and they are cryptic in any case. Essentially, you need to set it up NOT with "Google Home", but rather with "Google Assistant", which you can do either in the Google Home app, or online. Either way you do it, the results will be less than spectacular. First, you don't tell your Google device to turn them on/off, you have to say, "Hey Google, Ask Switchmate to turn on/off ___" which is pretty counterintuitive, but no worse than telling Alexa to "Ask Plex to play my music", so I could live with it if it worked at least 50% of the time. But it doesn't. Maybe one time in 10. It DOES seem to work right after deleting and re-pairing the devices - for about 10 minutes. During trying to get them to work with Google consistently, the devices stopped responding at all, and had to be deleted from and re-paired in the app - twice. IF/WHEN they ever come out with a WiFi version that uses the same sort of methodology that other home automation devices use, I'll be interested. For now, the only reason I'm not returning it is that I can still use it manually on my phone (after several tries usually), which in my case is still better than nothing - barely! I AM open to editing my review and changing my rating if we can get these working better. I'll be writing the company. If you see this without further edits, you can assume they were unhelpful or non-responsive.

This is exactly what I needed. My family's business is in a very old building, so the wiring is not exactly up to snuff for the fancier timer light switches. Most of the new switches require a neutral wire, which I do not have. I needed a way to make sure that my sign was turned on by a certain time, and would turn off at a certain time. This is perfect for that. Initial setup was very easy, as was setting the timer. Now, my sign turns on at 4:30, and off at 10. And if I have to turn the sign on earlier due to overcast weather, it still turns off at 10. I have not used the Bluetooth functionality really at all, besides the initial setup, but that went very smoothly on my Galaxy S7. The only thing I wish it would do would be in the timer setup. You can set the switch to either turn on or off at sunrise or sunset, but not within a certain time of sunrise or sunset. For example, I would like my sign to turn on an hour before sunset, but you can only have the switch activate at a certain time, or at sunset exactly, not at a set time before. Otherwise, this thing is great. I plan on purchasing another soon.

So first off, they’re incredibly easy to put on. You can do it with one hand in seconds. No tools or anything. The motor is a bit loud and sounds identical to an automatic soap dispenser you’d find in a public restroom. But otherwise I don’t have many complaints. The timer function allows you to schedule a time for when you want lights to turn on and off. It’s great because my kids like to sleep with their closet light on, but they’ll leave it on all day if I don’t turn it off myself. This way I can set it to turn off in the morning on its own. It’s also convenient to be able to get in bed and turn the bedroom light off with your phone. The batteries they come with are hit or miss. One of them had corrosion on the battery terminal, and another had the batteries already installed with a second set in the packaging. One of the switches didn’t want to pair with my phone at first either. It took a few tries but I finally got it paired. If you’re not home you can’t manually set the switches on or off, not see if they’re on. I suspect you have to be within Bluetooth range. So yeah. That’s all the issues I’ve had so far. It’s nice to be home and be able to shut off lights when people leave them on. But if you don’t have to worry about that or you’re looking for an automatic shut off timer, then I’d probably suggest looking for something else.

I used this product for my front porch light. Simply installed batteries, put over my light switch, downloaded the app and programmed on/off times. Just be aware, this switch operates over bluetooth and not wifi. So you cannot turn it on/off unless you are withing range.

Funciona muy bien. Tomen en cuenta que requiere un apagador como el de la foto.

Doesn't work. Simply put. Tried 4 switches around the house . And another home's switches... Each of the switches have slightly different switch height profiles. Tried to mount with or without the adapter that it comes with. Doesn't toggle at all. I tried adjusting the mount positioning. I physically held the product forcibly in place. I even temporarily modified the adapter to have more height to get more leverage...... No good. The magnet itself isn't very strong too. So while it's toggling , it falls off. Immediate return. I needed this because I have a specific switch that's on a 4 way. No smart switch can handle that. So I wanted a low tech mechanical solution. Too bad, this had promise but just doesn't work.

Mucha paciencia para configurarlo,hay que repetirlo algunas veces para que quede bien. Tienen mucho por mejorar. Tengo uno inútil desde una actualización, ni para detener una puerta quedó.

it works, but i need to turn on bluetooth and get close to it; overall, i need a timer and a remote switch.