EVE Eve Light Switch - Connected Wall Switch, easily upgrade to intelligent, automate your lighting with timers and rules, Bluetooth Low Energy, white (Apple HomeKit, iOS) - 10027805

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 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.

** As of iOS 11, Apple has corrected some of their performance issues with Bluetooth HomeKit accessories that were severely delaying the response time. I can happily say that the performance difference is drastic, and has largely removed all previous gripes.My previous review complained about the delay in turning lights on/off when using HomeKit. It seems however that Apple is largely to blame for poor response time with Bluetooth HomeKit accessories. After iOS 11 I'm happy to find activating over HomeKit is now acceptably consistent and quick. While wi-fi accessories still respond more quickly, the delay that currently exists is negligible; consistently well under a second. I feel somewhat guilty for blaming the light switch when it seems almost all of the blame falls on Apple.My old review is below, I have however put Pros first as I feel they remain relevant.Pros:Pairing was a breeze and the switch blends in perfectly with, in my opinion, an attractive small green LED back light when off (not at all bright or distracting, convenient in the dark for guests). Installation was simple and straight forward and the build quality was all in all great, a step up from your typical cheap feeling metal and plastic typical light switches are made of.**** Out of date cons, these issues no longer exist post iOS 11. ****While I'm ultimately impressed with its quality there is a very severe and inconsistent delay when using it over HomeKit. All of my other accessories, some closer some further from the hub respond consistently and without any noticeable delay, however this switch can at times can take a 2 seconds to respond or even up to 30 seconds! Once it does finally respond any controls immediately after are quick suggesting that after a short period without use it goes into some idle/inactive state and has to reconnect. Any signals sent during these delays are queued so if your impatient like me and keep turning it on/off hoping it will respond it will then catch up to each and every press when it finally does reconnect. It becomes very annoying... With that one major issue aside everything else is actually superb, which is why it's hard to rate it too low. If I could I would rate it a 3.5/5 instead as it's other qualities are too good for me to be too harsh.**** Out of date cons, this issues no longer exist post iOS 11. ****

I started buying the Elgato Eve switches in my home a long time ago. I only purchased the Leviton decora brand when I got to the three way switches, because the Eve will not work in a three way configuration. Over the years it has been very seldom that I would have to reset the Eve. The Levitons would show No Response anytime the power in the home failed, or the lights flickered (like during a storm.) They were also difficult at times to reconnect back to my WiFi network. I have recently replaced all my three way Leviton units back to normal light switches, and replaced areas I had the Leviton dimmer switches with the Eve (I’m willing to sacrifice the dimmer function to have a reliable smart switch.) SAVE YOURSELF TIME AND HEADACHE. BUY THE ELGATO EVE, AND, IF YOU NEED A THREE WAY OR DIMMER SMART SWITCH, WAIT UNTIL THIS COMPANY DESIGNS AND OFFERS IT. Thanks for taking the time to read my review. Above photo is of all the junk Leviton switches removed from my home (I actually still have two more to take out that are not shown in the photo.) I wasted a lot of money.

I've bought more of these. They're well designed and work flawlessly as the other Eve Homekit products I've purchased.I'm an old programmer dude that's had X-10, Insteon, Z-Wave, WiFi-Enabled and these Bluetooth LE products. It's my opinion these are superior in every way.- Security. WiFi devices put your whole network at risk if not properly fire-walled. Ring's doorbell was caught sending audio to China. Many other unknown branded wifi switches have been caught sending data to China. With Bluetooth LE, they are just not capable of anything like that.- Energy. The BLE devices use almost no energy. I've had Eve's Weather Monitor running on AA batteries for over a year and they've still got a good charge. This is while using the Eve app to download the data at regular intervals for monitor graphs. WiFi enabled devices consume a few watts of power. Not a lot but it's a huge amount more when you add it up 24x7x365.- Reliability. This is the most important factor for me. I tried Leviton's WiFi switch (DH15S) because I needed a 3-way switch. It would go offline (reddit and Amazon are full of complaints) and not be useable. The company sent me a new one at no charge but this one was also unreliable. I finally replaced with the Eve switch and rewired so it was no longer 3-way. Inconvenient but now it's reliable and I can always switch from my phone app.- Downside. Only one I can think of is distance which hasn't been a factor for me. I've got 3 levels of concrete and steel and have never had unresponsiveness. But I can imagine some extremely large homes where a wifi mesh network would work better. They don't make a multi-way switch which is not as important with voice control but it requires joining red and black wires in the other switch box.