Remote Dimmer Switches

[Adrenaline]

I finished building a house last year. I had ten Wemo dimmers and six on/off switches installed. The dimmers work fine but the app to remotely operate them is the biggest piece of garbage I have ever seen rendering my dimmer switches, even my on/off switches, useless. I looked at reviews and they were fine. The app is an entire other subject. I have had nonstop issues with it and after over eight hours on the phone over a few different days and not being able to gain any ground, I am done with Wemo and this garbage.

I want to replace ten dimmer switches and six on/off switches that have an app that will actually work properly controlling them. I need suggestions from people that will help me out. Give me information about how they have worked for you and how the app works. This is over $1,000 worth of equipment that was installed properly by an electrician.

The issue I am having is their app is just crashing during setup constantly or the dimmer switch I am trying to connect to my internal wi-fi is getting forgotten mid setup and the wi-fi latches on to my normal network.

Setup process:

Connect your phone's Wi-Fi to the dimmer
Open their app
Check out if the switch is working with controls in the app
The dimmer checks as fine and attempts to latch on to your network (crashes here a lot)
(If it makes it past the previous step) It attempts to reconnect to the dimmer and recognize other devices (It crashes here the most and this step does not seem important to me as it already went through this in previous steps)
(If it actually gets this far) You have succeeded in adding it

Now the fun part, my list should have currently five dimmers and six switches on it. It is currently showing two each. It is constantly forgetting and losing my dimmers. Ironically it recognizes the next to farthest dimmer from everything that has been synced.

This is the only thing I have had display any issues with connecting to my network.

 

[Greenman]

As a GC, my rule is to never install anything that needs wifi. It always means a never ending stream of call backs and unhappy customers. I know that doesn't help you solve your problem, but it's something to think about.

 

[Adrenaline]

I just wanted something I could control while out of town. I don’t have lamps with timers. It has been a huge headache to a point I may not worry about it soon.

 

[Paperdoc]

You may not need to replace everything. I just got a rather simple switch for exterior use. It plugs into an outlet and has three outlets itself for switched devices. I'm using it for some outdoor floodlights at the back of out lot. Not nearly as complex as what you're doing. BUT here's the point. Based on user feedback notes, I did NOT download the app provided by and recommended by the switch maker. Instead I got a different one recommended by some users, called Smart Life. I'm using a Samsung phone and Android OS, so I went to the Google app store and searched for Smart Life. You will get several things, but I got the first one with a blue house icon, made by Tuya. I think it was free. It installs relatively easily and has LOADS of device types it can control. Installing it means creating a user account - I used my e-mail address for that. In my case (only one device, not as complex as yours) I told it to detect the switch module with multiple outlets, because my switch's three outlets are controlled individually. So I went through the detection process and it got it working. Then I created a Family with me as administrator. Then two others in our household did the same, up to the point of creating their own unique accounts. Then using my phone, one at a time I added each of those people to my Family using their account ID's, and told my phone to share control of the switch with those people. On their phones the switch suddenly appeared as a device they can control. As one of us changes a switch setting, the displays on all the other phones in the family (IF the users are running the app and watching) are updated to show the current status of the switch.

So, that app CAN control a lot of smart devices, not just one makers' units. And free is a good price to trying it out.

One "glitch" we have not figured out yet about it, though. The whole idea of these is to be able to check and control your devices from near anywhere if you have internet connectivity. So far when we try from outside our home the app says it can't be done because the phone and the device are not connected to the same WiFi access point (router). But the odd thing is it DOES change the switch setting when you try - the app simply does not know what the current status of the switch is, so I can't check that.