Customer Reviews

GE 50462 7-Day Random Vacation Timer

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Good price and seems to work out of the box as described, the only thing the user has to do is set the current time and plug it in. Working fine with my lamp that uses CFC bulbs. The product descriptions says that it randomly switches on and off during the late PM and early AM hours, but it does not say what its definition of late PM and early AM is... during the first test run it did indeed switch on and off randomly but at 1:30 in the afternoon. I thought maybe I'd set the time wrong, but it kept on and offing through till about 10:30pm, so I don't think that was the problem. So its maybe a little more random than intended, but certainly easy and seems to work well.

I dont write long reviews but appreciate those who do. When I go on vacation I like to outfit my house with random lamp timers. Most are too complicated or fail to function after a power failure. These work perfectly. They are random enough, especially with one in each of several rooms.

I bought 3 of these. They are just old mechanical style plug-in timers except that the on-off "tabs" are molded in and are unchangeable, so therefore they are not random at all. Each day of the week has different on-off cycles but I hoped for more than 2 or 3 cycles a day and for true randomness. It is not easy to set the time accurately since the small dial covers the whole week, so I would recommend setting it up a day or two before you leave home so you can adjust it if necessary. So far they are running silently, unlike an old similar timer I use for my wife's plants.

OK, out of general respect for the Amazon community I guess it's my responsibility to write about this, since I'm returning it due to what I consider to be bad design.

And I do think it's designed badly. I should have read all the reviews, some of which pointed out this design flaw. I was in a hurry, and thus wasted my time.

In theory, this should be a product which provides a plausible, varying, sequence turning the light on and off during the evening hours, to simulate someone being at home and keep the house from being broken into.

What it does, however, is simulate a broken timer, in my opinion increasing the odds that burglars will figure nobody's home.

This is not an electronic timer, and really I'd recommend a settable 7-day electronic timer such as the "woods" models I subsequently bought off amazon. Battery backup is important, since you don't want all the lights going "off synch" if your grid goes down for any reason.

However, I bought these knowing that they were plan old physical switches. You may be familiar with the nature of the mechanism since it's been around for many decades. There's a little clockwork dial which goes around once each day or week, and there are "pins" you can alter to set the on and off times. When properly deployed, these pins physically trip a switch that turns the power on and off.

Nothing wrong with that as a cheap mechanism, and in fact I use a 24-hour "pin type" timer on my dehumidifier downstairs. They work.

However, what this device is, is a 7-day clockwork-style "pin" timer with immovable pins... and the pins are set NOT in a plausible evening pattern of on-off light use, but in a truly random pattern, which includes them being on in the daytime and after 2am. Anyone peering in your window and seeing the lights brightly burning in the afternoon would wonder whether you were there. I bought two of these for our house, tried one out overnight, and then boxed them up for return to Amazon. Personally, I think using them might do more harm than good.

You'd get far better functionality from a 7-day "pin" timer with user-settable pins, available at Amazon for not much difference in price. And my recommendation is to pop the extra couple bucks to get one with electronic display, dual cord inputs, and battery backup. A number of decent "woods" brand timers seem to be on Amazon's site, but really any major brand should do it.

So I don't recommend these. They are in my opinion fairly useless for their intended function and entirely useless for anything else.

best of luck.

I bought three of these, thinking they would turn lamps on and off at various times in the evening and early morning, making the house look more occupied when I'm gone. The description, and the packaging, said that's what they would do. I opened one to give it a try. And the description is half right. It is a 7 day timer that has different pre-set programs for each day. Most of this type of timer are 24 hour timers that will turn the lights on and off at the same time every day. This tries to be more random by having seven different programs, one for each day of the week. I figured out that there are 14 tabs on the wheel that rotates. Each time the tab hits an arm that sticks down and pushes it up, the light or whatever will come on for a period of time, it looked to be only an hour or two each time. Problem was half (7) of the times that the light would come on would be during the late morning, 9:00 or 10:00 a.m., or in the afternoon, 2:00 or 4:00 p.m. What is the use of having lights come on during the daylight hours? Another review said the same thing---that lights were coming on during the daytime too, and that's right. So the lights would only come on seven times during dark hours during a whole week, and only briefly at that. Some days they won't come on at all.

To top it off, the one I opened didn't even work anyway. Sent them back the next day. To achieve the reasonable amount of on/off lighting when it is dark outside that I wanted, I had to go up to a much more expensive type of unit, the Leviton LT112-10W. It is a digital timer, about $17 each, but you can program it to come on whenever you want, on and off several times each day, and different every day. To make the house look lived-in, I felt like this is what it is going to take. Unfortunately, the Leviton is out of stock right now, so I have to wait a month or two to get them. Luckily, no problem since I didn't need them any time soon. I will report on them as soon as I get them and give them a try. Reviews are good so far except for complaints that they go through batteries, but I think that is more for battery backup for when the power goes off in your house, and that is not a big problem here.

We purchased two 7-Day Random Vacation Random Timer - for the obvious reasons. The timers are easy to set up, good quality and were reasonable priced.
There is one major flaw to this product: The random timeing cycle makes no sense whatsoever. One timer went on in the middle of the night and was off in the early evening hours or morning hours. Makes not sense. We purchased the product to simulate presence in our house - at hours of the day that make sense. Poor logic.

As mentioned before it does go off at odd hours but to be honest after being burglarized once....I don't care.
I like that it goes on and off...just like a real person...not perfect timing but I like coming home and seeing my lights on. I now have them on even when I am not vacationing. I save electricity elsewhere....I recycle..reuse...reduce...so a bit of light on during the day is justified for my peace of mind.

The on-off day/times for the timer are fixed by GE in a somewhat random pattern - on some days it turns on at night, on other days it turns on in the day.

I've had one of these for three or four years, and it works great to randomly turn on a lamp to confuse potential thieves. I recently bought two more to use in other rooms when I'm away from home. Each device can be set to start using different random on-off cycles for different days, so using a few of them in different rooms seems to me to be an added layer of security.

It's the best kind of device because once it's set up, it becomes invisible and you can forget about it -- no tweaking required.

I bought a few of these and am really happy with them. They're very simple to use, just set the current time and allow the timer to run. Others have mentioned having issues setting the current time but if you set it at 10, 6 or 2 it's pretty easy. Even though it's not truly random, if a crook takes the time to figure out the pattern good for them. Overall it's a simple product to use and adds piece of mind when you're out of town.

PROS:
- Piece of mind
- Ease of use
- Timer bypass switch

CONS:
- Not truly random
- Setting current time can be tricky