Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best timer for the price, March 24, 2009
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)
- High-contrast LCD display
- 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.
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.
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.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Works Fantastic, LCD Should Be Larger, September 7, 2009
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.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Works exactly as advertised., July 30, 2009
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.
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