This is the lowest price I have ever seen on these outdoor smart plugs. They are great this time of year for use with all of your outdoor decorations.
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Yes, most of the GE switches are on sale
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Has anyone seen a competitor product in this price range? I have one of these and have been really happy with it (albeit only gets used this time of year).
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The inovelli outdoor plug costs more, but has two plugs which are individually controllable, so it will have a higher value for some people:
https://inovelli.com/shop/outdoor-smart-plugs/outdoor-zwave-plugin-module-2-channel/
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I have both the GE & Inovelli, besides having 2 outlets controllable individually or together it also in my experience is more stable. I’ve never had to reset it since I installed it over a year ago.
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It’s not exactly a competitor, but I’ve been using a Sylvania SMART+ ZigBee outlet in an outdoor covered box just fine. Paired with a 90 degree 1ft extension cord as a pigtail, I can keep the weather cover on the box closed even when operating.
Seems to work fine for me, but your mileage may vary.
Thanks, I’m too “by the book” to put this outside, but that’s a good price on an indoor outlet. It may work well for an additional Christmas Tree my wife is eyeing.
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Twice I’ve put an indoor outlet in a covered GFCI on my covered porch. Twice they’ve failed after a few months. I’m assuming from humidity & temperature extremes. In 5+ years I’ve only had 1 GE outdoor fail, that was because it got pulled so outlet was facing up & it got filled with water.
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Agreed. I even had an indoor outlet in my garage go bad due to temperature and dirt. But I’ve had a few of these outdoor outlets for over two years now. I used them for halloween/christmas decorations, bug zapper in the summer, used to have one on an outdoor garden fountain. These things are great. Never had any problems. And for under $30 they are a steal.
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Hmm. Well, as I said, your mileage may vary.
As long as we are offering anecdotes on failed switches, I thought I’d throw in two success stories. The SMART+ outlet has been working fine for me for about two months in the Colorado high country (10,000ft elevation and plenty of snow already). I have also been using two Aeon smart metering switches in my garage near Denver since late 2015. Temperatures range from over 100F (easily!) in the summer to below freezing (I think ~20F is the coldest I’ve seen) on very cold winter days. For the most part, the garage is dry. Sometimes it can get very humid when a wet or snowy car comes home, though.
It probably depends a lot on which indoor module you are using. Some are made better than others, mine were cheap centralite plugs and they didn’t take well to outdoor conditions. That being said I have been using an ecolink motion sensor outdoor for over two years with great success.
PIR is a completely different story. I’ve had ST( Centralite) and GoControl (Monoprice) in semi-sheltered locations for years. Only issue I’ve had is battery life in extreme cold weather.
Thanks for the tip! That’s a great price. Jasco makes these for GE and Honeywell and sells it themselves under the Jasco brand. I standardized my house on Honeywell security and Z-Wave products, so bought three of the Honeywell switches this summer for $33 each. One controls an outdoor fountain in the summer and the other two are for our Christmas lights. I bought three so I can just put them when done and put them back in service next season.
Unfortunately, our Christmas lights are going out this season (tripping the GFCI) when it rains or snows. I’ve temporarily changed the two Honeywell Z-Wave timers for two solar cell timers and am assessing if there is any change (I doubt there will be). I probably have some bad light strings letting water get in which is tripping the GFCI in the garage.
Has anybody had trouble pressing the button to put the switch into pairing mode? The switch is covered with a black rubber boot and I have extreme trouble getting the switch to activate. I had to return one switch because I never could could get it to go into pairing mode. I wrote to Jasco about the problem, but never got a satisfactory reply.