Customer Reviews

Woods 59377 Digital 7-Day Lamp/Appliance Timer with 2 Outlets, Up to 8 On/Off Settings per day and Battery Back Up

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(42)

 

 

NOTICE: For those in doubt about using the bottom wall outlet, please view my added photos above.

This timer is well-worth the price.

The majority of outlet timers only handle 2-prong devices, and even then, they can't switch much of an electrical load. The few 3-prong timers are either mechanical or, if digital, don't handle much current, have batteries to constantly replace, or are expensive on a per-outlet basis. We liked the Woods':

- 2 grounded (3-prong) plugs
- 1875 Watts (The timer, timer box and its leaflet show 1875 watts for BOTH Resistive and Tungsten, but Amazon and the online manual say otherwise)
- Self-charging rechargeable battery
- Manual bypass button
- Noiseless operation
- Up to 8 ON/OFF daily cycles for each of 7 days (allows timed events to cover sets of days, too)
- Daylight savings hour shift (just press two buttons simultaneously)

It also has a few features we won't currently need like randomized and countdown ON/OFF and the ability to cycle power to a minute's resolution.

I've tested this timer on our washer, freezer, basement dehumidifier, and our large air purifier. It easily handled all with no problems.

Other impressions: The picture shown above is accurate, but the rubber "Manual" button looks like a slider switch. Also, the days of the week arrows don't quite align between the display and its housing. The unit is solid and when plugged in to the upper of two wall outlets, allows our 3 prong (grounded) power strip to use the free outlet (a somewhat tight fit, though). Strangely, there is no mention of a warranty anywhere with the product. It is made in China.

UPDATE: One of the three timers we received stopped working. Amazon overnighted a replacement. The one that went bad now had a black carbonized piece in the bottom of the housing.

One thing to note about the Manual button: It cycles through 4 modes (manual on and off and automatic on and off), A single press won't necessarily toggle it to override its current setting if you are trying to get something turned on or off. The modes make sense and are shown on the display, but it wasn't what we initially expected from a manual override button.

The timers work very well and it is nice to have the battery power the clock and the programming when unplugged. We like the durable feel of the housing, too. Despite one early failure, we believe this is still the best timer to be found for anywhere near the price.

NOTE: The Intermatic DT620CH appears to be the best alternative if this is not in stock, but when you visit their company website, they claim their timer will only switch 500W (1/3 hp) of Tungsten (lighting) and 1800W Resistive and Inductive (motor). Also, it uses two LR44 batteries, which are not rechargeable.

Initially I thought this was an awsome product as it worked flawlessly. I was able to setup several different on and off settings for each weekday and weekend days. After the first 2 months I notice all the display locations were completely on so you couldn't read anything; until it was unpluged and it worked fine again. I reset it back to default, reconfigured all the settings and plugged it back in. Once again every display item was on so you couldn't read anything. It wasn't really a big deal since it was still working. Then after a couple more months it stopped turning things on and off. Now it's completely useless. I did get several good months out of this unit but I was expecting years...

I bought this Woods 7-Day Digital Timer to control warmrails (bath towel warming) in the master bathroom in my home. Without the timer the warmrails worked 24 hours a day, which cost about $17 per month or $200 per year. The timer keeps the warmrails powered only when we may need to use warm towels, i.e., early in the morning on Monday-Friday, early in the evening on Sunday-Thursday, later in the morning on Saturday and Sunday, later in the evening on Friday and Saturday. The rest of the time nobody needs warm towels, and the warmrails are powered off, which saves about 70% in electricity costs, i.e., it saves $140 per year. Considering how little I paid for this timer, the savings in electric bills have already paid off for the purchase of this timer. The internal clock in this timer is very accurate, and, what is most impressive, it keeps ticking and remembers all settings during power outages, which take place rather often in the area where I live.

Had this thing for a month and noticed it started turning my appliance on and off at different times after three weeks. I attempted to reset it but the display is missing elements in and i cannot see the days of the week i want to set. I have contacted the company for a return because no return info came with the unit.

This is a great timer with many excellent features. For one it has 8 programmable operations and can be used as a security timer for lighting, but the deal breaker was that it has a rechargeable battery backup in case of power outage. Where I live this is valuable as we tend to loose power fairly often. I was impressed with all the functions this timer offers for the price and recommend it as one of the better products on the market of it's type and cost.

One hitch in setting it up was size of the readout, but reading glasses helped and so was not a major issue ultimately. Worst problem was with setting the manual/automatic feature, but fortunately Aaron702's review saved the day where he states, and I quote "One thing to note about the Manual button: It cycles through 4 modes (manual on and off and automatic on and off), A single press won't necessarily toggle it to override its current setting if you are trying to get something turned on of off. The modes make sense and are shown on the display, but it wasn't what we initially expected from a manual override button." I completely agree with this statement as this feature is not exactly intuitive and nearly caused me to return the product as defective when it wasn't.

The instruction manual is not the greatest, it is a sheet of paper with writing on two sides. When setting time I thought it might have been wiser to mention setting daylight savings there rather than later on where I least expected to find that information so I would not have needed to go back and set it afterward. Also they call this setting 'summer winter' which seemed odd as well. It does not hurt to read the entire instructions through at least once before trying to set the device for this reason.

At first I thought this unit was great. The setup was pretty intuitive and it'd handle exactly the programming that I needed. I setup my appliance on this expecting to find it turned off 3 hours later. To my shock and horror, I found the device on 10 hours later with the timer displaying all 8888 for the time, as well as every other LCD element lit. Unplugging and replugging did not fix anything, and actually proved it was further broken! The battery backed-up clock/timer feature was also not working (although it was working great out of the box, and as I setup the unit). Now something is rattling around inside the unit and its display is still just full of garbage as it passes power (a *SAFE* unit would fail to OFF, not ON). The quality control is certainly not up to par. My appliance was rated at a quarter of the capacity of this 15A unit, I should not have had problems! Avoid!!

I'm not sure why others have had a problem with this. I have 6 of them. I also have two teenagers. I use these on the oil filled radiators in their bedrooms which are far from the furnace, and on their computers. Because there's a 7 day schedule, each is programmed for maximum electrical efficiency. Because there's an easy override, the teens are willing to work with me about saving energy.

I also have one on my "on demand" hot water heater under my kitchen sink so that it does not continue to heat water all day long when no one is home. When I need to over ride the program, I can just reach under and hit the override. When the programmed "off" time comes around, it returns to the program.

About plugging it in: it will fit perfectly into the bottom outlet, unless your outlets are installed upside down. The ground prong should be on the bottom.

I have been using these for 4 years. I would not give them up for anything. They have cut my electric bill down considerably without inconveniencing anyone.

Go for it! It will pay for it self in no time at all.

I read the reviews in advance, knew I was dealing with sketchy hardware, and bought it anyway. My first was a dud, dead within 24 hours. I returned it for a replacement, but honestly I had already calculated the cost of multiple purchases into my value of the product's features. If I had had to shell out for another (or if I do later), I would have happily. Fortunately it failed quickly so Amazon replaced it gratis (kudos to Amazon for the quick shipping and convenient RMA process). My second has been functioning with a 1500w (safety enhanced) space heater, every morning for a couple hours each morning for a week. I need cold temps to fall asleep, and warm temps to wake up, and this helps me make that happen.

Why 4 stars even though 1 failed? When it works, it does exactly what I need, and few (if any) other products do. I need a high amp, 7 day programmable timer with plenty of flexibility and ease of use. This isn't just 7 day programming (so you can have different programs for each day of the week), it eases odd schedules with the opportunity to set for various other patterns (right now I make use of the MTW pattern to save a little time). I programmed it without needing instructions (meaning the interface is intuitive). Only the "manual" button is confusing. I'd rather pushing it manually turned the device on or off, depending on the state it was then it without affecting future programs. The Woods has several settings you have to cycle through some of which would prevent future programming from activating if you leave it on the wrong one, which for me means unplugging it so I can bring it to eye level and see what setting it's on. I don't use this button at all because of that, but I don't really need it either. I also wish the second outlet could be timed independently, but I can find uses for this as well.

If there were real competition, I'd dock Woods for the inconsistent build quality. But other than (maybe, didn't look too closely) a Brinks timer at wally world that I didn't find until after this one, nothing else even met my minimum standards. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. If you do buy it in spite of failures as I have, think of it as costing twice as much in case you need to replace it. If you aren't willing to risk that, beware.
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UPDATE 12/15/10: I've been using it for 4 months daily and my second one still works like a charm. Only ongoing complaint is the unnecessary complexity of the "manual" button.

I have tried with two, guess I'm a slow learner. The first one worked well for three months then scrambled images appeared and it developed a personality of it's own. The second one had it own way from the first like it does not understand AM or PM settings.

I bought 2 of these and one of them was completely dead! I mean; a new product!!! how can this be possible!!??.

(update (10/1/2011) the second one I got stopped working after 6 months of use. I wasted ~$35 on these poorly made products, please buy something else with that.