iDevices Wi-Fi Thermostat - Works with Alexa (Open Box)

Hi, I’d like to share my review of the iDevice Wifi Smart Dimmer Switches (IDEV0009) Pro’s - Compatible with Apple Homekit, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and IFTTT Fairly Easy Installlation - Great Instructions on iDevice Website including videos for installation. Reliable after power outage or loss of wifi iDevice App does not specifically require HomeHub. Con’s - Price Size - Switch is rather deep so sometimes getting it into wall boxes might be a problem if there are a lot of wires. Feel - Rocker switch feels slightly soft and “plastic” when depressing and doesn’t give a solid feeling when depressing compared to traditional rocker switch Hi - I currently own 5 of the iDevice Wifi Smart Dimmer Switches and Have Been Using them for over 2 months. I have 2 pair of 3-way installations, and a single pole setup. I’ve bought these switches through a couple of different vendors depending on which site would give best deal at the time of purchase. Setup - I installed all switches myself. You must have a neutral wire contained within your wall box — many older houses do not have a neutral wire so I would check your box prior to purchasing this switch (or any smart switch since they all seem to need this requirement). I would also watch a few videos of the installation found on the iDevice Website or through an internet search since installing the three way switches can be a little bit tricky. My wires unfortunately were not the traditional white, black, green, red color — so you might have to spend some time looking at your current setup to determine the line (typically black) and load (typically red) lines. Unlike most of the other 3 way switches I’ve installed, purchasing two of these switches for a 3-way setup does not require a traveler wire. The two switches communicate to each other through bluetooth. My switches are located fairly close to one another so I haven’t had any problem with the range of the bluetooth connection or interference from other devices. I’ve lost power to the house and router several times and they all seem to come up and recognized by the control software after a few minutes after a power or wifi signal loss. I’ve been pleasantly surprised with their reliability from recovering from a power loss. Once switches are installed the addition to homekit was very easy and it was very easy initially to control these switches through the iDevice mobile app. The firmware to the lights is able to be downloaded and installed through the app and this process was very fairly easy. I would be hesitant to use these switches for remote control if the wifi signal is shoddy, or the switches were located far away from the wireless router/access point since communication between the switches and mobile apps may not be reliable. Build and Quality - There is an LED contained in the center of the rocker switch. The color can be customized and it could also be turned off completely if not wanted. The rocker portion of the switch works like a traditional rocker, however the sensation when pressing the rocker is soft and kind of “plastic-like” unlike the firm feel of a traditional switch. I could imagine this being a problem if the physical switch is used commonly. There is also a small delay after hitting the rocker and the light turning on/off . It doesn’t seem to be as quick as with a traditional switch. Concerns - When researching various smart switches on the market, I wanted a switch that would be compatible with the 3 major vendors currently in the home automation market (Apple Homekit, Amazon Alexa and Google Home). Most of the other smart switches I found were compatible with one or two of these vendors but not all three. I still have some concern about the future not knowing if any or all of these vendors will completely drop out of the home automation market in the future. I suppose this concern is relevant to all “smart switch” setups. I wanted switches to have as broad of support as possible to try to “future-proof” the switches. The switches can also be controlled through the iDevice mobile app, however grouping of lights and scenes are not as easy as when combined with a complete automation program. Home Automation integration - I personally elected to set these switches up with the Apple Homekit program. I do have some privacy concerns with all the home automation companies, but given the available information, I felt Apple’s was the least intrusive. If integrating with Apple’s Homekit, a home hub device is required. Choices for a home hub include an iPad, Apple TV or HomePod. I want to stress a home hub is not required to run these devices at all if not integrating with Apple HomeKit (iDevice infact makes a point of this since you can monitor the status of the switches remotely from any location using iDevice mobile app). Additional thoughts on Automating these switches - Prior to setting up the switches with HomeKit, I used the scheduling app contained within the iDevice mobile app. I wanted my exterior lights to be turned on at sunset and turned off at sunrise. Unfortunately the iDevice scheduling app could only turn the lights on/off at a specific time and not at sunrise/sunset. IFTTT (If This Then That) is another option I tried. I was able to find sunrise/sunset IFTTT routines which were already written so setting up IFTTT really required me only to download the app on my mobile device, add my switches, download the sunrise and sunset routines and then activate the routines. Unfortunately I didn’t have the best of luck with IFTTT. I’d estimate 60% of the time everything worked as planned, but the other 40% I would get errors such as device is unreachable, or unknown error. Despite trying to research and debug these errors, I never really found a solution. After IFTTT, I moved on to Apple Homekit. Setup was slightly easier than IFTTT (particularly if you own an iPhone), but Apple requires a homehub. I’m currently using an old iPad as the home hub. This is mostly reliable if you keep the iPad constantly plugged in so it doesn’t lose power. The only other major glitch I’ve found is if there is a power outage that occurs prior to the the “sunset” period, the sunset routine will not be run after power is restored in the event of a power loss. Networking Considerations - I haven’t tested the bandwidth consumed by the switches although I’ve considered placing the switches on their own separate VLAN. If you had a setup with a lot of iDevice switches, available IP addresses may become a concern unless the pool of available IP addresses is increased at the router level or the switches are moved to their own separate VLAN. Manual assignment of switch IP address is not possible within the iDevice software. If you desire a fixed IP address for each switch, this can only be done through the router software where a static IP address is given based on MAC address. If running a very restrictive firewall on your router, you may need to check what ports need to be opened. I’m running pfSense as my router software and I didn’t actually need to open any ports or modify the firewall in anyway for the iDevice software to work. General Impression - Overall very pleased with the performance and operation of the switches however still concerned about the changes that could occur in the future with the home automation field. Given the higher price of these switches, it would be very costly to replace all the switches for the next “better and greater” home automation switch.