Honeywell Home RPLS730B1000/U RPLS730B1000 7-Day Programmable Light Switch Timer, White

Works well

When I purchased my home I needed to have a radon fan installed as the radon level was just slightly above the advised limit. The fan, like any fan, makes some noise/vibration and the vent pipe goes right by my bedroom on the outside of the house. As a light sleeper this drove me nuts. All last winter I went to the basement and shut off the breaker to the fan each night. It wasn't an issue during the summer thanks to open windows, crickets, tree frogs and other night time noise makers. Then it was winter again... I started shopping for a hard wired timer looking at several variations. I kept coming back to the Honeywell and finally pulled the trigger on it. It arrived quickly thanks to Amazon Prime and I soon went to work. $6 in parts from the big box store bought me a place to mount it in the basement. I shut off the breaker and cut the electrical wire to the radon fan. New box installed and when I went to mount the Honeywell I found it wouldn't fit in the metal faceplate. I needed to trim the mounting tabs on the timer to make it fit. This would have happened to any brand and is not the fault of Honeywell. Once the tabs were trimmed the timer mounted beautifully. Electrical connections were simple. Programming the Honeywell could not have been easier. Set the time, set the day, set when you want it to come on and off. My program was simple and repeated each day. Off at 11p, on at 6a. It works wonderfully and there is now silence when I sleep (except when my kids wake up) I highly recommend this timer and my only complaint is a lack of a backlight on the display. Certainly not a show stopper but it would make the timer even better. As stated above, my radon level was just at the threshold for a mitigation system and I am comfortable shutting it off. Consult a radon professional before shutting off your mitigation system.

This thing is really cool. I wanted something that I could use to put my porch light on a timer with a CFL bulb, and this works perfectly. Some other available products (light sensors and other timers, including a Honeywell timer similar to this one) only work with incandescent bulbs, which defeats the purpose of putting lights on a timer to save energy. I could leave my 26-watt CFL (100w equivalent) on all day and still use less electricity than a 100-watt incandescent on an 8-hour timer. With this model, you can program either a single on/off cycle to repeat every day, or up to 7 separate on/off cycles for each individual day of the week. I think you can also set an every-day cycle and combine it with 6 additional day-specific cycles if you choose. The cover for the programming buttons also functions as the manual on/off button, and using it does not interfere with your programs. There is another model that works with CFLs -and- can be set to vary its on/off times to match your local daylight calendar ( Honeywell Econoswitch RPLS740B 7-Day Solar Time Table Programmable Switch ) but for the extra cost, I didn't need that feature. I had some trouble figuring out that you have to slide a toggle under the button cover to "ON" before the switch itself will work AT ALL. I thought that was a bit confusing in the instructions, so now you'll know. Programming is not very difficult but it took me a few tries to figure it out. When you are finished programming, just close the cover and press it once (as if you're turning the light on) to exit programming mode. To use this timer, you need to have a light switch where the power enters at the switch rather than at the light fixture. That's because the timer itself needs to have electricity constantly, in order to operate while the light is turned off. If your power enters at the light fixture instead, shutting off the light would also kill the power to the timer. Most houses are wired the correct way, which typically means at least 1 pair of black/white wires entering the switch box. If instead there is no white wire (i.e. neutral) at the switch, only two black wires or a black and a red, you won't be able to use this timer. (Note: There is no safety concern if your switch box doesn't contain a white neutral wire - it's just an antiquated wiring practice). As a side note, this switch has some sort of capacitor inside that saves your programs during power outages. It isn't a battery, so you would never need to replace it. It has worked fine through a couple of brief outages so far. Edit: Lost power for over a week from some nasty storms this summer (July 2012), but the timer remembered all of my programs and the clock was still correct. Awesome!

I've had this product Honeywell 7-Day Programmable Timer for two months. It's used to control three outdoor lights, two on the garage and one at the front door entrance. I tried several different dusk to dawn devices but none of them worked very well. They all often came on whenever it rained or the sky was very cloudy, even when it was in the middle of the day. This product is a good solution. You set it to the time you want it to come on and when you want it to turn off. If you prefer, you can set different on/off times for each day. That's a good feature if you want to avoid a fixed pattern. That feature is intended to confuse someone trying to find out when you are gone for a while, perhaps on vacation. It does not adjust automatically for daylight saving time nor does it adjust as the sunset time changes. Thus, you must reset the start time as the daylight hours change. Another worthwhile feature is the capability to control low-watt LED lights. Other programmable timers like this often require a minimum wattage that may be too high to control LEDs. The device has a small LCD screen which shows the time of day and is also used during programming. Programming is fairly easy and gives you the option to set all days the same, without having to set each day individually. One of my pre-purchase concerns was whether or not it would control the motion detector light fixture at the front door. Works perfectly. When the timer comes on, the two garage lights turn on and stay on until it reaches the programmed turn off time. The motion controlled light stays off until motion is detected. When motion is detected, it turns on and when it no longer detects motion it turns off and stays off. You can override the programming to turn on the fixtures immediately by simply pressing the lower part of the timer. You can return to the automatic program by pressing it again. The reason for knocking off one star is that the LCD window is hard to read because the digits are black on a dark green-gray background. It has no backlighting so I always have to use a flashlight to read it. I should add that the timer is located at the usual light-switch height in a hallway that is not particularly bright. However, even when the ceiling fixture in the hallway is on, the timer is still hard to read. I would buy this product again.

I installed this timer to control the exhaust fan in a walk-in closet. This walk-in closet has no windows and we are concerned about musty odors building up, and, the possibility of mold due to no air circulation. Our builder installed an exhaust fan with an on-off switch. We wanted to automate the fan and have it turn for several hours daily. We run it a few hours every day but sometimes forget to turn it off or on. This timer is exactly what we wanted. I installed it a few days ago and it's turning the fan on and off at the appointed times (7 AM - 5 PM). We can turn it on/off by pressing the cover, which activates switches in the timer. Here are some comments. MUST USE A TIMER THAT'S RATED FOR A MOTOR. There are a lot of timers out there, most of them control lights. A motor is different because, when the motor first starts, it draws a lot of current -- the startup surge -- then it draws only the amount of current needed to run. Lamp timers may not handle the startup surge. In fact, the first timer I bought (sent it back) said NOT FOR USE WITH MOTOR -- the warning was not in the description. WHICH IS THE LOAD, WHICH IS THE LINE? This timer has three wires that must be connected to NEUTRAL, LOAD (the motor, the light, whatever is being controlled) and LINE (the wire coming from the breaker, carrying current). the box where the switch being replaced was located were two cables, each with white (neutral), black (hot), and ground wires. I could not tell which cable came from the breaker box (line) and which went to the fan (load). SO -- this is what I did. -- Turn off power at the breaker. -- Remove the switch from the box. -- There I found: (1) two white wires tied together with a wire nut; (2) two black wires, one going to one switch terminal, one to another switch terminal. -- I disconnected the black wires from the switch and removed the wire nut from the white wires but left them twisted together. -- MAKE CERTAIN NONE OF THE WIRES IS TOUCHING ANYTHING -- pulled them out of the switch box so I could get to them. -- Went back to the circuit breaker box and turned the breaker on. CAREFUL -- THE WIRES HANGING OUT OF THE SWITCH BOX ARE NOw HOT. -- Used my volt meter -- set it on the 200volts AC scale. Hold one voltmeter lead onto the white wires, then touched the other lead to one of the black wires. -- One black wire will show voltage, the other will show no voltage. The one that shows voltage is the LINE lead because it's carrying voltage from the breaker. The black lead that shows no voltage is the LOAD, going to the fan, light, etc. -- Remember which black lead is which. -- TURN TO BREAKER OFF. Check to make certain there is no voltage on the leads -- voltmeter between white wires and one black wire, then, the other black lead . . . should show zero volts -- Label the LINE and LOAD leads. I used a small piece of duct tape for each with LINE and LOAD written on the tape. -- Wire the timer. (1) Tie the timer's white wire to the two white wires, using the wire nut that's already there. (2) Connect the BLUE wire coming from the timer to the LINE and the BLACK wire from the timer to the LOAD, using the two wire nuts supplied with the timer. (3) If your house has metal electrical boxes, ground the ground wire to the box. If plastic box, just push the ground wires out of the way. Hope this helps.

This timer is a a big disappointment. I found the display so difficult to read that I finally gave up completely. I've used room lights, lighted magnifier and two types of flashlights trying to use this device to no avail. It seems to want to be lighted from above but the shadow of the top of the display bezel blocks the information at the extreme top of the display. I set the time satisfactorily (though the first digit of the minutes was fractured mostly). The DAY I couldn't set at all as I could not see the DAY display. When the switch is off, you can see the OFF with difficulty, when it is ON, you can hardly, if at all, see the ON display caption. In a nutshell, the display is the worst I have ever seen. Maybe this unit is a fluke, but I sure couldn't use it and I have set these kinds of things all my life. Even the door over the keys is a pain. It falls down if you bump it and in any event divides your vision between either the display or the keys, you can't see both at once. If you have a darkish room, not at eye level and you wear trifocals, fugetaboutit. I really wanted this to work, but failed, it's coming out. I bought another timer, less sophisticated but OK for my application Stanley 38425 TimerMax Digislim Daily Digital Indoor Lamp Timer, White, 2-Pack . It's the easiest thing to program I've ever seen. You can read the display. Some reviews knocked the battery access. I couldn't find one. Instructions say battery is rechargeable and doesn't mention access. Price much less than Honeywell unit but of course much simpler: only one ON and OFF time in 24 hours. That's all I needed. It's an inline unit whereas Honeywell goes in a wall box but I can use it. Later: I use the Stanley timers to power reset each IP surveillance camera in a group we've deployed. The FOSCAM FI890xI cameras occasionally must be power cycled to force a reset. Why I don't know. But these timers can turn power off for one minute once a day. Saves me a lot of work. If a camera goes silent, it's automatically back in service in less than 24 hours. Time keeping is not very accurate in the Stanley, but doesn't matter in this application. I have eight of the timers running, none have failed yet.

I’ve read all the reviews but was especially interested in the one star ones. I don’t understand the comments about it being cheaply made and not functioning correctly. Licensed electricans sometimes aren’t all they are cracked up to be either. If your wiring is for a standard switch type, the installation is straight forward and simple. I think the switch is very well designed and very well made. I don’t think that the programming was super easy, especially if you needed to program each day of the week differently. That being said, it was certainly doable with any degree of ability. I held the little access door open with a small piece of tape to keep it from falling closed while programming and found that reading glasses and a flashlight were helpful. I love the product and would recommend it for functionality and value.

Absolutely love this we installed it in our plant room to cut the lights off and on for lighting cycles was super easy to install and to set up the timers as well would definitely recommend