Customer Reviews

Black & Decker FW3000 5- Piece Freewire Indoor/Outdoor Starter Kit

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the coolest kits I have come across and at a great price, I friend of mine paid full price from Black and Decker a couple months ago. I have a few X10 products in my house but this kit is awesome because it has a remote that can control everything from lights to appliances.

Setup took 2 minutes after opening the box. Push one button on the remote and push one button on the base station and that was it. Easy plug and play solution.

I used the outdoor lamp modules to control my outdoor lights and gave the remote to my wife to put in her car. Now when she comes home at night she can turn on all the outside lights and 2 lamps in our foyer. The range of the wireless remote has been pretty good, about 140 feet depending on which walls it is going through. I am thinking about buying another kit for the remote and outdoor lamp modules.

I've looked at X10 technolgy for years, but never really had a need to use it before now. I recently installed a pool that has a light that is plugged into an outlet in a flowerbed at the back of my yard. I wanted to be able to turn the light on and off without trapsing through my flowerbed in the dark. This X10 set from B&D proved to be the perfect solution. I followed the instructions in the box and had the outdoor outlet for the light installed in about 15 minutes. It worked perfectly and has worked flawlessly for the past month or so.

I have not used any of the other included X10 receptacles.

One word of caution. Be sure that you realize that there are wattage limitations to the switch outlets. You cannot run things like pool pumps, etc. on one of these lightweight units. I know they make X10 switches that handle more load, but these aren't it. I believe the outdoor switches are only rated to 500 watts. The indoor units are even less (I think they are 300 watts) and aren't grounded. They are strictly designed for lamps.

Assuming you have light load needs, this is a very good startup set.

The device does what it says and works very well. The only con is that you can only use the indor receivers with incandecent lighting and I have energy efficient bulbs thoughout the house so I was forced to use the outdoor receivers indoor.

For the price, it is a decent starter kit for the B&D Stuff.

This system is supposed to be X10 compatible, so I specifically

bought it for the two outdoor modules, so I could control my

Christmas lights. Well, as should be expected for X10 stuff,

it suffers from shortfalls. Mainly, for some reason, the outdoor

outlet that I wanted to use the modules with, wouldn't receive

an X10 signal with these devices, or with my other devices.

I even went as far as getting an extension cord and putting

the transmitter on one side and the receiver on the otherside,

and it still wouldn't work! I suspect that since my garage is

on that circuit, I must have something plugged in which is

really sucking up the signal. I didn't feel like going

through the garage unplugging everything in order to

isolate the problem, so I ended up getting a standalone

remote control device from Walmart.....

All of the modules work fine elsewhere, and although they

are supposed to be X10 compatible, the remote control didn't

seem to control any X10 devices besides the receiver mounted

outlet. It was weird....

The manual could be better, especially with regards to

technical stuff, like the X10 compatibility.

Excellant way to control outside X10 devices. This kit is actually cheaper than purchasing the outside modules seperately if you can find them.

I used these for my Christmas tree lights and outside lights. Set up was very easy and very convenient to turn on and off. They performed as advertised and I would recommend them hightly.

I bought the Freewire product with the intention of putting all my christmas lights on the system. I liked the idea of not having to go to multiple recepticles to turn the lights on and off every night.

If you only want to cover a small area, 1 FreeWire system will suffice. But, if you are only going to use 1 system, you will find that the hub needs an unobstructed line of sight to the receivers and the further away the hub is, the less reliable the product becomes.

But, when you add multiple FreeWire systems (Hubs, primarily), the product works much better. I got outstanding results when I put hubs in seperate rooms. The remote doesn't need line of sight to activate the hub (it just broadcasts a signal), but the hub needs to be in rather close proximity with the receivers to be very effective. The more obstructions between the hub and receiver, the closer the hub needs to be.

All in all I was able to put 85% of my lights (all the ones on the first story and Front yard) on the freewire system. It was really pleasant this year to control all the lights with the press of a button instead of relying on a bunch of timers.

There is an excellent concept behind this product. I love the design and the functionalities especially the house code feature. There is a little problem I encountered. The outdoor switch doesn't work when the server and the switch are on different circuit group(under different switch in the electric box). I don't know what caused that. I haven't spent a lot of time on that yet. Problem might get away if I leave that switch on the plug long enough to charge cell that keeps the memory of the code.

Man am I glad I picked this little gem up! I am using it to turn on and off the Christmas lights around my house. The two outdoor rated devices allow me to turn on and off the outdoor Christmas lights from the warmth and comfort of my house. The two indoor modules allow me to do the same without bending over and knocking off half the tree ornaments!

After Christmas, I am sure I can find a use for it around the house, but rest assured, come Christmastime it will be utilized to turn on and off those pesky, yet wonderful, Christmas lights!

It dropped a star because even in the off mode it still allows a little electrical current through. Not sure why, but it does. I know this because the outdoor Christmas lights (even though they are off) still emit a slight glow. No big deal, but I would think off is OFF!

I got this for my husband as an early Christmas present. We are using it with our Christmas lights and Christmas tree. It works great and is very simple to use and install. So much more convenient than having to go outside to turn the lights on and off or reach behind the tree. I would definitely recommend this to others.