Eve Light Switch - Apple HomeKit Smart Home, Smart Light Switch, Set Timers & Schedules, Bluetooth, App Compatibility

Updated 2019 Review (five stars)This switch works perfectly and gets the little things right. Now that my house if full of Homekit devices from a lot of brands, I can much more accurately review a product and better judge its performance.The fact that this switch uses bluetooth instead of wifi brings on a whole lot of trade offs. It increases the latency of the device, but it also uses less power and doesn't clog up my wifi. Typically, I have everything setup to use automations that run... automatically. If some device is delayed by 7 seconds, it has no effect on the outcome of that automation. When using this switch as a trigger for an automation, it works flawlessly, and with about the same latency as a wifi device. Bluetooth also means it will work even if my router is malfunctioning, but the range is limited to the bluetooth reach of my phone and AppleTVs. If you are all in on Homekit, you are also likely all in on Apple, and this should not be an issue.I really appreciate the indicator light on this switch. I also have wall switches from Sylvania (great, but has a rocker paddle with on/off and that is now a deal breaker for my wife), Koogeek, and Insignia (do not buy Insignia homekit stuff from best buy, total junk). All three of these other brands have indicator lights that are not programmable. They all illuminate green when on, and they turn off when off (Sylvania turns dim blue when off) when off. The Eve switch allows you to make its green light be: 1. always off, 2. on when the light is on, or 3 on when the light is off. I use option 3 so that it is easier to find in the dark. If it was in my bedroom, I would probably choose option 2, and/or use the other feature of choosing from one of three levels of brightness.One thing that I'm a little frustrated with about this device's app, and many others including iDevices, Koogeek, and Sylvania is that they try to be your "everything" homekit app. They show you all of your devices and have no real filter to just show the devices from this specific company. The main thing I use a device specific app for is adjusting settings for that specific brands devices, and for firmware updates. I have the native Home app, and several third party apps that are great for generally controlling arbitrary hardware. When I go into the Eve app, I want to check for Eve firmware updates and possibly change device specific settings.Pros:* Bluetooth - Does not clog up your wifi, uses less energy when doing nothing.* Programmable indicator light.* Simple touch to change the state of the switch (instead of discrete on/off switches).* No moving parts to wear out* ReliableCons: (this list is really hard to fill, so I'm super nitpicking)* Doesn't look like a normal Decora switch (maybe a pro to some)* Bluetooth can lag 1-7 seconds* Does not track power consumption, but it can be inferred from the bulb rating and the time kept in the app.Original 2017 (four stars) ReviewThis switch works perfectly fine, but being bluetooth, and not having any sort of physical button make it not as transparent as it could be. I basically bought this because I was too impatient to wait for the dimmer switch from iDevices (IMO the gold standard in HomeKit). Also, this was 1/2 the price of the wifi switch from iDevices.Basically, the capacitive or whatever it uses for sensing the on/off works well enough, but we have a lot of misfires. The bluetooth LE nature of the device means that it changes state about 3-6 seconds after requested from the phone. When touching it, it switches state immediately, unless you don't touch it just right, and then you have to touch it again.It is also a bit baffling how they include on/off monitoring, but not power monitoring.This was a great addition to our HomeKit home, but it is not perfect.I'm looking forward to the similarly priced switch I just preordered from Koogeek, which is wifi, rather than bluetooth.

This is a great switch and it works flawlessly. I got this and Philips dimmer switch so I have something to compare to. Since this switch is hard wired, there is never an issue with it.There is one gotcha if you're using Philips hue lights or any other IoT lights. Since this is a physical switch, it will turn off power to those lights making them inaccessible from your IoT devices/apps, but the beauty of this is that you can turn it on (even with Siri) and then you are free to use your other IoT devices to control the lights if they are wireless too.The other great thing about this is the app itself, I love how straight forward this is for setting up automation or certain triggers, plus it's a clean looking app, which lets you control other devices.Oh and I was able to put this together with a regular switch into one electrical box. I originally thought that it could only be placed by itself, but it turns out that all those front plates (2 of them) are removable and it can easily be screwed into a bigger electrical box that contains other switches/outlets.As for the delay between physical touches of the button to lights going on and off, it's way faster than my Philips hue dimmer switch, and I feel that there might be a 1/2 a second delay, but it's practically unnoticeable. It does have an interesting click to it when you tap the button (the button isn't physical, it's just a tap, but the click happens inside it once it's been tapped, kind of weird, but not annoying).

This is an excellent addition for an Apple ecosystem with the Apple TV 4. It works so well that I bought 4 more.Note that when the Apple TV is used as a HomeKit hub, it seems important to set the Apple TV so that it never sleeps. For me, HomeKit seems quicker and more responsive if the Apple TV 4 is awake and not sleeping.I had a few questions that you may have too.1. First, the neutral wire is attached to the Eve switch to power the switch so it can monitor the bluetooth. The required neutral wire is likely in US houses built since the mid-1980's. To check whether your house has one turn off the circuit breaker and remove the switch plate. The neutral wire is the white wire in the switch box. It is probably not connected to any switch in the box (unless you already have a switch in the box that requires power). Take a look at the switch box. Is it plastic, or metal? A metal box may shield the signal reception.2. Our 2-story frame house is over 3,000 square feet. I wondered if the bluetooth would work reliably through walls and floors. I used an iPhone app called SpreadMesh to measure the RSSI signal strength of the Apple TV's bluetooth at places where I intended to put the switches. All of my switches are in areas where the RSSI is between -90 (weaker signal) and -67 (stronger signal). One switch is upstairs and the rest are separated by distances up to 45 feet from the Apple TV.3. The switch responds instantly to touch and works as well as or better than any manual light switch. Often times, there is a few second delay when triggering through HomeKit. In practice this is only a minor inconvenience because I use HomeKit to automate scenes that control several devices so even with the delay, it's an overall win.4. With the Apple TV, I'm able to control the light switches from my iPhone any where I have cell access. I imagine the delays are longer when I'm away, but I'm not in the house to notice. Note that my Apple TV is set to never sleep.The Eve app's logging of the switch power usage is a nice record of activity in the house when I'm away. I really wish that changes in the on/off status could trigger a notification. If it did, then the switch could be a valuable security asset as well.