Honeywell Home RPLS740B ECONOswitch 7-Day Solar Programmable Switch, Lights and Motors, Indoor and Outdoor, Energy Saving, White

Ok, let me start by saying this is a wonderful timer, and the installation and programming was so much easier than I expected it would be... First, I know nothing about light switch wiring at all... I read the item description about needing a neutral wire, and read the reviews verifying that. Since I didn't know what that was I looked it up on Google, then took my switch apart and saw what I believed were the neutral wires I needed. So I snapped a couple photos, and took them to Home Depot to ask someone. They verified that it would be an easy install, so I placed my order. When it was time for installation, I set aside a couple hours, just in case it took longer than expected. But it only took me about 10-15 minutes. Surprisingly simple. I shut off the breaker, pulled the two wires out of the old switch, added the new switch's neutral wire to my other neutral wires in the box and capped them. Then I attached the load and line (they were the two wires attached to the old switch) I could not tell which was which since I didn't have a volt-meter. So I just attached them one way, turned on the power and saw it didn't work. So I just switched them, and it worked fine. (Exactly as the electrical guy at Home Depot told me to watch for) The hardest part was getting the switch pushed back into the housing box with all the wires in there. Be ready for that if you have a lot of wires in yours. Also please note that the screws that come with the switch are really weak. I saw other reviewers mention that, and I concur. They stripped right away, so I just used the screws that were there before. Also, once the switch is installed it does not come with a face plate cover. You have to buy that yourself for a couple bucks at any store. As for programming... I thought it was quite simple and intuitive. You press the main button to enter the menus. There are four menus. I don't remember them exactly, but one for time, one for programs, one for the backlight, and one for the mode. Something like that. Here's the deal... If you can program the digital clock on your microwave, or dvd player, or a digital watch, then you can do this without much trouble... Choose which setting you want and push the main button to select. The actual programming was simple enough to set an on and off time... The directions that come with it aren't great, but they are enough that combined with common sense you should figure it out easily enough. You chose one of the On programs, choose which day of the week (or all of them), pick the time, and confirm it. Then do the same for the corresponding Off program. Anyway, I set up the couple I needed, and it worked perfectly first time out. So I'm really impressed and would buy another and/or recommend them without hesitation. It looks really nice. Works perfectly. Easy to use. And it was delivered really fast. Ordered on a Monday and received it that Wednesday! Thanks for reading my review... Hope that helps!

I searched around for something like this for a while. I had been to places like Home Depot, Menards, and even Lowe's, and could not find what I know that I was looking for. I was looking for something that I could use to control my outside lights, i.e., the front porch, the back porch, and the patio light. Each had their own standard "Toggle" switch on the wall near the door. I tried those "screw in" type sensors, but they never worked right. The lights would flicker at the threshhold between daylight and evening. Then the bulb would not fit in my decorative "Coach Lamps" correctly. I tried two different kinds, but neither worked. I thought about having new wiring put in and getting a central timer, but that was costly. So needless to say, I was a bit frustrated with the things that I had found and tried to use at that point. Ahhh! But then, as I searched the internet, I came across the Honeywell Econoswitch RPLS740B &-Day Solar Time Programmable Switch! This turned out to be EXACTLY what I needed. It is a MARVELOUS piece of work! BIG THINGS certainly DO come in small packages! Upon receiving these babies (as I purchased 3 of them), I went to work and installed them myself, and I am not an electrician either. Okay sure, I had some electronics training when I was in the Air Force many years ago. But I'm not an electrician! Anyway, installation only took me about 10-15 minutes for each one. The programming was relatively simple, as they come practically pre-programmed. All you basiscally need to do after installaing them is set the time and go with the default program, which is set for the region that you live in. According to the manufacturer's literature, the timing of the light's on-off feature is based on your region's "longitude / latitude." I chose to go with the default, and they work well! The lights will turn on at sunset and off at sunrise time. By the way, the sunlight has nothing to do with it. The timers do their thing rain or shine! They WORK GREAT! Another feature that I like is the little blue LED light that turns on to let you know that the outside light is turned on. So, even if you cannot see the outside light, the blue indicator says that lightswitch has turned on. There is also a digital, backlight clock on the switch. I really like this feature as well because, I get to view the time at a glance on my way out of the door. One more thing.... The auto-adjust "Daylight Savings Time" feature WORKS GREAT! I installed these units sometime well before Daylight Savings Time, and forgot about the change when it came around. No problem. The units took care of that automatically! I wish that the clocks on my GE microwave and range were that smart! Oh, lest I forget, the Honeywell Econoswitch RPLS740B &-Day Solar Time Programmable Switch, doesn't use batteries for backup. According the the manufacturer's literature, the selected program (and time) will automatically maintain itself for up to 4-hours after a power outage! My power was not off for 4-hours, but it was off for a least 25-30 minutes, and the units maintained themselves. Again, I wish that the clocks on my GE microwave and range could have done the same. Now, here is what I have to say about this piece of work overall. Honeywell really outdid themselves with this one! They really put the features in this bay boy! It has TRULY been a LIFESAVER for me! I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT! Tree

Bought 2 of these (1 used). This unit needs a white neutral wire (WHITE). Feed (Black) and load (Blue - to the device you want to turn off and on/power). Don't know about using ground for neutral but my box had the neutral so I used it as designed and intended. It doesn't need (or have a place) for a ground (bare or green wire) BUT I put one on the screw used to secure the unit into the gang box anyway just in case. Powers my CLFs w/o issue and floods as well (standard incandescent bulbs). Remember, you need a face plate for this, but I mounted this (2 of them) in a 3 gang unit so I had to get my own plate anyway. Programming was intuitive (unlike other units I programmed with the daylight feature) and really like the solar time feature which you set and forget. Easy to override and easy setup. No coin cell batteries to replace. Bonus is that I don't need to go online to figure out how to reprogram them if need be. All you need is the 3 buttons you see. Now I don't have to worry about my motion detect floods from coming on during the day (they are supposed to only come on at night with movement, but surprise, they turn on with movement during day too). I guess I got what I paid for (floods were cheap) but this controls them all and only powers them at night. As for my porch lights, I programmed them to be on at night and off at dusk. Perfect so I don't have to keep resetting on/off times year around with other standard timers. 2+ months into this and working well. WELL worth the money. Finally for those on a lazier side, this unit is already pre-programmed with a North American Latitude and Longitude so it will get the sun rise and sun set about right if you never set it specifically for your region (but I did anyway since I wanted it to be more accurate)

One of the best ways to protect your house while you're away. Before I leave for a few days or more, I set three of these to "travel" mode. They come on at dusk, then turn on/off randomly every 90 +/- 30 minutes until 11:30 or so. It truly lights up the whole house for the evening, as seen from the outside. Some Criticism: - They all come on EXACTLY at dusk. It's highly unlikely that a lived in house would suddenly go from unlit to 100% lit. So I offset the inside light near the front door to 1/2 hour behind the other two lights. This way, the back of the house does light up all at once, but the front of the house lights up 1/2 hour later when it's more dark & therefore more noticeable. - They are expensive. Expensive enough that it would be nice to have a way to update the software. I'm satisfied enough with the functionality, but I imagin they are continuously improving the menus, randomization options, etc. Example: I'm sure they could program these to have a random offset for the turn-on after dusk, which would address my concern above. Too bad there isn't a USB port or something we could use to re-flash the memory. Maybe some-day. The pro's outweigh the cons. I especially like how every time I've come back from a trip, the power has has gone out and the timer on the oven is flashing. I've had these switches over a year, and they've never skipped a beat from five or so short power-outages. As with any security measure, it introduces a vulnerability: if you forget to pull the shades on any portion of the house lit up while you're gone, then a thief could sit on your house until they're sure nobody's home. Same thing with fake-TV, if you forget to pull the shades then it backfires and announces that you're away. For me, this device is right up there with putting my mail on hold and having a neighbor ensure that no newspapers build up. That and a fake-TV on a timer, and a couple of small lamps on timers. If you're really serious about securing your home, you'll have between five to ten mechanisms in place. (High-security locks/door hardware, reinforced strike plates, out-door motion sensors, outdoor cameras, decoy outdoor cameras, door barricades, doberman alarms, home security alarm system, high-security windows, sliding latches with padlocks on the main garage door, accent lights, motion sensor lights, dusk-to-dawn lights, etc.) The visible hardware on the outside definitely scares off burglars & pranksters. It might tempt the teens to see what they could damage on the outside, despite the alarms going off. But it's only a couple hundred bucks to build up an aura of "please don't mess" on the outside. The high-security locks/door hardware/strike-plates/windows are the expensive projects, but they really do secure the home, even while I'm in it. If you travel regularly, neighbors will eventually figure out that if the house is all lit up in the evening, then you're on a trip. That's where all the other security mechanisms come into play, to fend off the teenager down the street and the hardened criminal. I'm lucky enough to have a couple of neighbors watch over the place while gone, and especially lucky that one is a retired cop. Here's how I implement this before a trip: Two days prior to departure, I set the three Honeywell lights to travel-mode, as well as my fake TV and a couple of lamps on timers. After dusk, I ensure the blinds are all down and I circumnavigate the property, with special emphasis on how it looks from the road and how it looks from the back, where a burglar would approach the house. I repeat a few hours later after it's pitch dark. This confirms that everything on a timer on the inside is working as desired. After I get back, I leave everything on travel mode for a night and repeat the process. The tells me where I got it wrong before I left, alerts me to burned out bulbs, etc. Taking a step back, these three Honeywell timers are one of the most important layers of security for my home when I'm traveling. In my opinion, anybody who's concerned about securing their homes while away should definitely buy a couple. It's much more convenient than individual lamp timers, and more effective at making the house look lived in. I have a couple of individual lamp timers to supplement, for effect.

The Honeywell RPLS740B Solar Programmable Wall Switch does exactly what Honeywell says it will do and is fully described and accurately pictured in the sales literature. Honeywell has designed the switch to make the physical installation very simple from a mechanical standpoint. Before buying this unit, I recommend that you remove the wall plate from the switch you will be replacing. This can be done without turning off the power and is not dangerous as long as you don’t stick anything into the box in the wall. Look for a white wire inside the box. If you don’t see a white wire anywhere inside the box, I recommend you stop reading this review and start looking for another programmable switch. This switch requires a white wire and the cost and hassle of bringing one into the electrical box could be large. The programming instructions that come with the switch are more like chapter headings in a book. You get a list of the chapters but not much text and no illustrations. Programming this unit is a lot like driving from your house to a rural town 100 miles away. According to Goggle Maps, you get on State Road X next to your house, 50 miles later you turn left onto State Road Y, in 30 miles turn right on County Road Z and your destination will be on the left in 20 miles. Sounds simple and is simple until you find State Road Y is closed and you have to take the poorly marked detour. It doesn’t take long before you don’t know where you are, how to get where you are going or how to get back where you came from. Programming the Honeywell is easy and straight forward until you press the wrong button or accidently advance to the next step. There is no chapter heading for, “I think I just screwed up, now what do I do?” I have been using and programming computers and electronics since computers were the size of a one car garage, but I needed 3 tries and an hour to get this switch programmed. I’m not sure how I got it to work, but even a monkey can press enough keys to eventually write a novel. I guess that I was lucky on my third try and patient enough to wait through the slow response times before moving to the next step. At least the backlit screen makes the text visible. The programmable switch I was replacing had an LCD screen with micro type that was not backlit. I strained to read the screen in my less than perfect lighting and a flashlight reflected off the screen making matters worse. My yard light now comes on at sundown and goes off 30 minutes before sunrise every day, exactly as I wanted. We have lost power a couple times, but, fortunately, the Honeywell switch has not lost its programming. Would I recommend this switch, yes, if you have the patience to slowly and carefully proceed through each programming step and you have a white wire in your electrical box. It doesn’t hurt to have skinny fingers either. The buttons are small. March 2018 Update We lost power for 2 days and the Honeywell switch lost its programming. My wife who is totally computer literate, reads instructions, and patient enough to follow step by step instructions spent 2 hours trying to reprogram this thing.

We've owned several light timers over the years. This is the best one we've ever had, and it isn't even close. I want my outside lights to stay on all night long. For years that has meant reprogramming the on/off times several times over the course of the year as the lengths of the days change -- for example, I need my lights to come on before 5:00 p.m. in December, but closer to 8:30 p.m. in June. With this switch, that reprogramming is a thing of the past. This sucker is just awesome. SETUP: The best user interface I've used on a device like this. It has three buttons and it is simple and intuitive. It's not so intuitive I'd recommend throwing away the instructions (which are good, but not great), but it's pretty darn good. When I was using it for the first time, I had it up and running with a simple program within five minutes. The real beauty of the switch is that during the setup process, you look at a table of cities in the instructions (mine was in there) and you enter the corresponding latitude and longitude of your town. Using that info, the switch knows the exact times for sunrise and sunset every day of the year. While you have the ability to program the lights to turn on or off at any time of the day, I simply set the device to switch them on at sunset (indicated by a crescent moon) and off at sunrise (indicated by a shining sun). With that setting, the switch automatically adjusts itself to the specific sunrise and sunset times each day of the year. Done. It's that easy. FUNCTION: But does it work? Well, I installed these switches in my house over a year ago and I haven't touched them since. No issues with power outages. No need to update the clock. No issues or flicker with LED bulbs. Every time I drive up to my house after sunset, the lights are on. Every time I drive up to my house when the sun is still out, the lights are off. The operation is flawless. Hallelujah! BOTTOM LINE: I love these switches. I even bought a few more for other outdoor lights. Given the efficiency of LEDs, it's nice to have certain outdoor lights that are on all night long. Best of all, I don't miss reprogramming my old switches every few weeks as the daylight hours change, or every time the power goes out. Let there be light!

I have installed three of this type of smart switches in my home and and a fourth one that is a different model for 3 Way operation. The 3 Way version is also available on Amazon. This is a superior switch when compared to the Intermatic smart switch for several reasons. This switch contains a high quality relay to turn the load off and on. I actually took a switch apart and showed it in my video. The relay allows the unit to control resistive loads, inductive loads and capacitive loads with no problems. Some cheaper smart switches use electronic switches to turn on the load and they do not work with compact fluorescent bulbs, led bulbs and motors. This Honeywell unit has no problems and is actually rated to handle twice the rated current in the relay. That is good to handle the initial current surges when starting up some types of devices. This Honeywell unit also does not require a battery to operate which I like. That is why I got rid of the Intermatic switches as I got tired of changing the batteries. These switches also have a very nice back lit display that is easy to read. There is a way to turn the back lighting off so that is only comes on when you touch a button. My only negative is that there is a BRIGHT blue LED on the unit that is on when the switch is activated and the lights are on. It is so bright I had to put a piece of black electrical tape over it to dim the light in our bed room. The Honeywell switches were easy to wire and program. I only use one program on my units to turn on and off security lights on my home. I programmed the switch to turn the lights on at dusk and off at dawn. Once I set up the time zone and the compensation setting, which is in the manual, the programming was completed. Fast and easy. The unit contains an electrolytic capacitor that holds a charge and helps the unit remember your programming if you lose power. The switch is powered by the same AC power that it is controlling. If power is off for too long a time you will have to reprogram the time setting, but that is easy. This is an excellent product and I rated it at 5 stars. I hope my video is helpful for you. These units have been installed for about 1 year and they have been working fine with no issues. In that time period I have not had to reset any of the switches one time.

I really like this switch. Works as described. And for only having 3 buttons, the using interface and navigation is surprisingly very well done. If you've installed or modified an outlet or switch before, you should have no problem installing this product. If you haven't done this before, then the process is still doable, but it'll take you longer while you get confident working with the exposed wires and figuring out which wire goes where. Don't be scared; as long as your circuit breaker is off, you can't get hurt. Here are the steps I went through to install the switch. Your process will likely be similar. --PREP WORK-- 1. Turn off the circuit breaker at the electrical panel. Just turning off the switch is not good enough because at least one of the wires in the box would still be live. 2. Unscrew the existing wall plate. 3. You'll see that the switch is screwed into a blue box. Unscrew the old switch from the blue box and pull it out a bit (with the wires still attached) so that you that you have access to the wires and the space behind the switch. Don't worry, the wires are way less brittle than they seem. Unbend them instead of pulling them if you're paranoid. 4. (Optional) If you need more space to work in the blue box and/or you don't have easy access to the white neutral/return wires, you might need to unscrew and pull out the other switches that are there. I had to do this because the white wires were folded up behind the other switches. 5. Bear with me. 5a. Long story short: You should have two black wires attached to two different screws on the old switch that you're replacing. Figure out which one of these is the line and which is the load. Mark or identify them in some way. 5b. Long story long: One of the black wires attached to your old switch supplies power from the electrical panel to the switch. This is called the 'line.' The other wire, called the load, is connected from the switch to the light itself. When the switch is off, there is no electrical connection between the electrical panel and the light (between the line and the load). When the switch is on, you are physically connecting the line and load, which allows current to flow from the electrical panel, through the switch, to the light, then back through the neutral/return wires (which are white), eventually returning to the circuit panel. For typical boring switches like the one you're replacing, it doesn't matter if the line or the load is on the top or bottom screw of the switch. All that the switch is doing is connecting the two separate wires; doesn't matter if current is flowing up through the switch or down through the switch. However, it does matter for the Honeywell Econoswitch (and any other fancy programmable switches). This is because programmable switches are always using a little bit of power to display the current status, keep accurate time, charge the battery, etc. Therefore, you need to make sure that turning the switch off will disconnect the light from the switch and not the electrical panel from the switch. Okay, now in order to actually figure out which black wire is the line and which is the load, I personally turned the circuit breaker back on, made sure the old switch is in the OFF position, and used a voltmeter by putting one lead of the voltmeter on one of the black wires/screws of the old switch and the other lead on one of the ground wires that should be hiding in the blue box somewhere. (The ground wires are easy to spot because they have no plastic insulation around them.) If you do this and you get no reading on the voltmeter, then the black wire you're touching is the load (connected to the light). If you do get a reading, you have identified the line (connected to the electrical panel). Just to be sure, you should test the other black wire on the old switch to check that you get a different reading. Again, keep the other lead of the voltmeter on the ground wire. You could also use a white neutral/return wire instead of the ground here, but at the time I didn't expose any of the white wires' copper conductor. 6. Turn the circuit breaker back off so everything's safe. --INSTALLING THE NEW SWITCH-- 7. Remove the old switch by unscrewing the black line and black load wires. 8. Gain access to any of the neutral/return wires. These are white. If the box you are working on only contains switches, then all the white wires are probably just twisted together with a colored wire nut/cap. Untwist the wire nut (CCW to loosen) and pull it off. You now have access to the neutral/return wires. You will eventually shove the white neutral wire from the Honeywell into this twisted mess and put the colored wire nut back on. 9. You should now have three conductors in the box that you'll connect to the Honeywell's three wires: a black line wire that was connected to the old switch, a black load wire that was also connected to the old switch, and one or more white neutral/return wire that are probably just twisted together. Use one of the supplied wire nuts to connect the line wire in the box to the line wire of the Honeywell. Do the same for the two load wires. Do the same for the white neutral/return wires, noting that you might have to use the old wire nut in case the supplied nut is too small. 10. Everything is now connected and ready to be tested. Turn the circuit breaker back on, and make sure the switch works. Pushing the big button on the bottom should control the light as normal. 11. Turn the circuit breaker back off. --SHOVING EVERYTHING BACK IN-- 12. For me, showing the wires back into the box is always the hardest part. Electricians have a knack for fitting a mess of wires into a small box. I apparently can't do this well. Anyway, do remember that the wires are less breakable than they seem. The worst that can happen during this stage is that a wire is pulled loose from a wire cap. That's unsafe, so make sure it doesn't happen. There are techniques to ensuring a secure fit; find them online. 13. Screw the switch(es) back onto the blue box. I always have trouble making sure that the switch are flush to the wall and not crooked. Again, bend those wires. They're sturdy. 14. Screw the new* wall plate on, and you're done. *New because your old wall plate was probably only big enough for a toggle switch. You need something like the Leviton 80401-W 1-Gang Decora/GFCI Wallplate, Standard Size, Thermoset, Device Mount, White .

The product control voltage is 120v. Cannot use in India directly.

Sept 7, 2024 - Initial Review --------------------------------- I bought 2 of these and just installed it today. The first one took a bit of time to figure out which wire goes where and to figure out the Longitude, Latitude, and the coordinate adjustment values on first setup. The instructions provided has everything you need. Also, there are some really good YouTube videos you can watch before doing the wiring. Installing the second programmable switch was pretty straight forward except for the fact that my original programmable timer switch's blue wire connected to a hot wire while the black one went to the outside lights. The original electrician had 2 black wires going in and out of the old switch, one was line and the other one hot for the outdoor light switch outlet. The one in the living room is a black for hot that went to the switch's black wire and a red for line that went to the switch's blue wire (simple). Long story shot, I had to rewire the outdoor light switch twice because of this confusion. Once everything is set up, the Honeywell switches are nice and simple to program. Both are working as expected. They're definitely nice and I can actually read the programmable settings with a backlight on! This is better than my old one that turned yellow from ozone degradation. The old one had a really small LED display without any backlight and it was so hard to see, even in my younger days! I haven't figured out fully on how the automatic setting with the fluctuations in daylight hours. I assume that the defaults provided for sunset based on Longitude and Latitude is somewhat accurate in addition to the daylight savings time (DST). Also, the adjustment of 1 (one) is likely the whole hour to delay for sunset at dusk. I'll have to play around with this and see if putting the adjustment for 2 or 3 will delay turning on the sunset time to 2 and 3 hours. The only knock against this programmable switch is that it is expensive. However, there are other programmable switches out there similar to this but with unreplaceable soldered in batteries that die out in a few years and are either comparable in price or higher. This one, like my old programmable switch, uses a capacity to store some charge to keep the settings alive for a short period of time. The old one lasted for over 25 years. Hopefully, these two Honeywell switches last as long or more. I will provide further updates on this review of the Honeywell RPLS740B Econo-switch as necessary. Update: Oct 30, 2024 ---------------------------- Added photos to hopefully help others in programming this timer. It's relatively easy and the Longitude, Latitude, and Adjustment factors are given in the instruction sheet. My Honeywell timers has been used for 2 months now and I love it. The automatic sunset adjustment with offset for my front door lights and another one for my living room lights works out great! My front door is offset +50 minutes after sunset while my living room timer is offset to -20 minutes before sunset. In addition, I can turn it on or off manually and the timer will continue to switch on or off at the set programs. The daylight savings time will be this Sunday. So, I'll see if the DST feature works well in conjunction with sunset offset settings. The display is big and bright enough for my aging eyes to see. Love these programmable switches from Honeywell and I do recommend these particular ones. I will continue to update this review as necessary.

The device is not compatible with any of the EU electric circuit standards. It is only for 110V electric circuit. I really do not understand why it is sold in the EU Amazon markets.

Advertised to have the plastic cover come with it but it doesn’t!

Una de las mejores decisiones que he tomado es comprar estos switch. Tengo 2 de ellos los cuales programo que se prendan y se apaguen a cierta hora. También pueden programarse según la altitud y latitud para que enciendan y se apaguen al anochecer y amancecer. Se programan por días individuales, lo cual yo uso para que las luces se apaguen mas tarde los fines de semana. Es muy util para cuando no hay nadie en la casa y no se vea sola. Además también para la gente que olvida apagar las luces son de mucha utilidad. Lo mejor es que lo tengo con focos de led, entonces aunque se enciendan diario no gasto tanta luz.