myTouchSmart Programmable Indoor Digital Timer, Plug

Love this so much because of its ease to use, I bought another one.

Hard to figure out

I bought this over many other solutions to a digital plug-in timer. It came powered on which at first I thought was weird but this must have an internal battery that will keep the time active in case of a power outage! That is a great feature as it would take a bit to reset a custom time if the power were to go out.Setting the time was easy. As long as there is some charge to that internal battery. Mine was a bit dying when I first tried to set it up, so it was very hard to see the digital display. It was like trying to see a watch that had a dying battery. After plugging it for a bit I was able to easily set the time. It is a bit slow to setting the time. But you just need to hold down the button and it goes by pretty quickly. Make sure to set it to the correct AM/PM, or whatever you have it hooked up with will be a bit off :)You have several different options for when it will turn on/off your device that you have plugged into it and a custom setting. I only used the custom setting so far but the others are easy to operate. You just push the button to the setting you want and a blue indicator light will turn on next to the button. This says its all set, it will turn on and off at the designated times. If you chose to use the custom my time setting, it is simple to set up. Set up is similar to the same way that you adjusted the time. You push the custom start button, and use the arrows to select your time and push the custom start button again. The same for the custom off button. After you plug it in, plug the device in and select the timer button you want to use. A blue indicator light will turn on to tell you that it is set. There is also a countdown feature that will allow you to have it turn on for a specific amount of time, say for 2 hours and after that it will turn off.Overall this has made my life a bit easier. I don't need to remember to turn on/off my light to my bonsai tree in the morning and at night. This will make sure that everyday my tree gets the much needed light it needs to survive even if I am not home to to do so!

Needs to be plugged in to program. I used an extension cord so I could hold the timer. For each function that you are enabling, the blue light needs to be lit and needs to stay lit after you program. In my case, since I programmed a manual on and off time, both buttons are lit after the programming is complete. Once you understand, this is a very easy timer to use.

After looking into about a dozen timers, I bought this one for automatically turning on the Xmas tree lights (400 leds) for a couple reasons and it worked fine:1) It's digital and discreet - you don't have the "whir" or the confusion of all those sliders/tabs of the mechanical dial ones2) It retains the settings if the power goes out for a while (still there after a 12 hour outage)3) It's GE, which my experience suggests exerts much better quality control on China products than othersTo use, you plug it in and press the up/down arrows under the display to set the time. Then you press one of the buttons below and use the arrows again to set the time for that function. That's it. The blue led next to the button(s) glow when selected. Instructions are crystal clear. It has one 2 prong outlet on the side as pictured. Only one on/off cycle supported, not multiple ones. Four stars for one thing - the LCD display is small (3/8 inch numbers) and faint, which can be annoying if you're scrunched down at a wall outlet setting things, or your eyesight isn't so good, or you need to frequently change settings, so consider accordingly. I only set it once for the Xmas season so not a problem for me, and other timers seem to suffer from the same issue, but why designers don't have the display light up when any button is pushed is beyond me.

A friend suggested these OTHER “smart plugs” - hers is attached to her Alexa…. Make a long story short they were too much trouble for me, if Wi-Fi goes out - trouble - have to program in your phone - those FLASHING lights had me up… I guess they lost the signal again, they were horrible!—————————————————- THESE PLUGS ARE GREAT! I remembered that I had an earlier plug I saved, forgot why I stopped using it…. Programmed it and it worked fine, I just ordered another one and it worked right off the bat - after I programmed it - it came on 2 hours later! Don’t NEED to “program” in your phone or attach to Alexa….

I have had several of indoor timer models from different manufacturers. I can tell you its extremely frustrating to reset a hard to read not intuitive timer that does not hold the setting through a loss of power (which happens more often that you think in rural Iowa where I live). The myTouch is intuitive and extremely easy to use. The myTouch timer holds the setting through loss of power and is very easy to set plus the manufacturer has default settings that make things very easy and those setting are perfect for my needs. I also have the myTouch outdoor version which I use for Christmas decorations - it was because that model worked so well that i got the indoor version reviewed here.p.s. There is an option to rate Sheerness but I have no idea what that means in the context of this product so left it un-assigned.

I really like it but it does need a very simple override button. In short, there is no way to tell it "be an outlet now until I tell you to stop". You can turn on the countdown function for a set amount of time and still keep the timer function active.I use this to control and white noise machine in a bedroom. I want it to run all night and shut off in the morning. It works flawlessly for that and you can program your own on and off time. The reason I'd like to see a on/off override is that sometimes, like during a kids nap, it would be nice to have a one touch that would just make it function as a regular outlet. Then when the nap is over I could push again to let the timer take over. Instead I have to guess how I'd like it to stay on. Admittedly, this is pretty minor. I just unplug from the timer and plug into the other receptacle on the outlet.