Light Switch Timer review from @LightTimer

We were asked to review a brand new product from Switched On products.

It’s a device which transforms your existing light switch into a timer switch.

The befits are four fold:

Security:

Police advise householders to leave a light on when it’s dark to deter burglars

Money saving:

You don’t have to remember to turn lights off when it’s daytime as the timer takes care of that for you.

Environment:

By turning lights on and off automatically you can potentially reduce your carbon footprint.

Safety:

If you’re working late you can ensure your child doesn’t get home from school in the dark during the Winter months.

The main benefit of this device is that no wiring is required. It took Mr Green less than two minutes to install – all you do is loosen the fascia screws a little, slide the case behind the switch and you’re good to go.

The product has had rave reviews and has been formally accredited by the Police. Apparently, every 40 seconds, a residential home somewhere in Britain is burgled, so £27.99 is a small price to pay for peace of mind.

So what’s it like to use?

Installation couldn’t be simpler. Even I could have grabbed a screwdriver and fixed this on the wall. Set up is straight forward and pretty intuitive. Plus it is suitable for one, two or three gang switches and any type of lightbulb such as CFL or LED.

The device design is simple too – it’s mechanical and consists of wheels that roll over the light switch to set it to the ON or OFF position at the time you stipulate. What’s not to love?

However there are a few things we found annoying.

• We have a three gang switch and we only wanted the timer to operate one of them. But once the device was over the switches we couldn’t then manually operate the other two.
• There is no back light which means setting or adjusting the timer in the dark is difficult.
• It’s noisy! When the rollers go over the switch it wakes you up (we had ours outside the bedroom door and the noise carried through the wall)
• It takes two AA batteries and you are advised not to use rechargeables. For a green household this went against some of our values.
• In our lounge and bedroom (the two rooms we would be most likely to want this device) we have dimmer switches. The Light Switch Timer is not compatible with dimmer switches.
• When you remove the batteries, you lose all of the programming which is highly annoying.
• If you want to turn your light on manually (say you get home earlier one night) the device stays on permanently; it doesn’t then turn the light off at the time you’ve set it to.
• We live in an older house and this was not compatible with all light switch types.

All in all I’m not convinced I would recommend this programmable light switch. Yes it beats the competition in that you don’t need an electrician and it works with any type of light bulb, but the ‘annoying’ list, for us, outweighed the positives.