Energy Egg and Control Adaptor Pack - Black

We bought one of these to control some IT equipment in our office so that it could automatically get turned off over night and would come back on when people come in in the morning. I'd not seen it advertised but stumbled on it so thought I'd give it a try.As you can see in the description there are two parts - a remote switching socket and an egg shaped PIR sensor which is battery powered (9v battery included) and wirelessly controls the socket. The instructions say the battery should last 18 months which is impressive. Once we got it working the sensor does an excellent job of detecting if a room is occupied - even if people are just sitting working at computers. We've not had a single incident of it turning off early because it thought a room was empty which is excellent.However, it took us a few days to set it up correctly - the instructions are poor and it is unexpectedly complicated pairing the two devices together and then setting which mode to use. I could not say what the correct procedure is - we got it working after 3 days of trial and error. There is a rotary control on the bottom of the sensor that is graded in minutes - turning it sets how many minutes before the attached device gets switched off after no movement, but for some reason the functionality changes according to how many minutes you have set, which is confusing. For example, if you set five minutes it'll turn the devices off when the room is empty but not back on again. If you set 10 minutes it'll turn devices on but only if it's dark. If you set 15 minutes it turns on attached devices if it's light or dark (I think) and 20 minutes plus is some other subtle difference that we've not worked out. In addition there are buttons on both the plug and the socket that must be pressed to confirm the changes, but these buttons also sometimes override the automatic setting but it's not clear if this is permanent or temporary. The egg flashes green and red and beeps but there are no clues in the instructions what this means. If I push one of the buttons does that mean everything stays on or off? I have no idea, and now we have it working I am not keen to mess with it.Despite the fiddly set up, now we have it working, the egg shaped sensor silently does its thing, just very briefly flashing red every now and then when we walk near it - doesn't beep any more so we think it is OK. We have the dial set to 20 minutes and if we leave the room for more than 20 minutes it does switch everything off, if we come back it switches them on again. So for the moment it works, but my expectation is quite low regarding its long term reliability. I expect one day we'll discover that it has been put into a mode that stops it auto switching and everything that has been connected has just been on for days.

As other reviews have already suggested, the instructions are worse than useless. The confusion starts with the same set of instructions being used for two different products (energy egg with control socket, and energy egg with power strip). There is a button on both the egg and the socket, which is to be expected, but it isn't always clear which you're supposed to be pressing. The different settings are differentiated in the instructions and on the egg's dial with timings of 5 min, 10 min, 15 min, 20 min. For most of the settings, these timings are almost entirely arbitrary. Why not instead label the settings with your favourite colours, the scientific names of Zimbabwean mammals, or the ingredients of a Caesar salad?The problems with this product go deeper than this however. The instructions are unclear, but this is in part because the design is dreadful. Why on earth are minute timings used on the dial on the bottom or to differentiate these different settings? Furthermore, what are the two 'bonus' secret settings on the dial: 25 min and 30 min? These aren't even mentioned in the instructions. Why are they on the dial? I assume that the answer to this question is "cost".I worked out how to use this product through trial and error, with a smidgen of logic and a bucket-load of luck. If you really want this product but don't like solving puzzles, then I recommend giving it to a friend who does. I gave this 3 stars purely by being such a fantastic idea.

Instructions are awful!!. Although I've got it to switch everything off I'm yet to get it to switch them back on to movement.! The dial is on the correct mode. The instructions is constantly contradicting it's self.UPDATEAfter considering to return the item I gave it a second chance. Once reading the instructions more deeply, I've realised how to set the mode etc. And timer. The time and mode are separate things. There just a button to press to chance mode. Then another to chance to the time it takes for no movement to cut power. To chance mode press and hold for 10 seconds the light should flash red and green. Change wheel on bottom to chosen mode then hit the button again. Mode now changed. To change the timer just change the wheel at anytime.Excellent product. It turns my lights on as well as the leds around the tv. However sometimes it does miss one or the other which is extremely annoying!Overal impressed

Great little unit this and very simple to go through the "initial set-up".That said, it's a little trickier setting up the "auto-on" functionality... a thorough read of the manual should see you overcome any problems.A few more buttons/dials may have made for a more intuitive experience but it looks like Treegreen have decided to use fewer buttons in an effort to make it "look simple"; the trade off of course is that there is a lot of cumbersome "press and hold" actions to make one button perform many functions.Fortunately once you've set this up you can just forget about it. Apparently the egg unit should last for 18 months on one 9V battery (we'll see!) and I have no idea if all the egg settings will just wipe away or remain on some onboard memory. Time will tell!I'm tempted to invest in more, including the light switches... I quite like that you can slowly build up your "collection" rather than forking out hundreds in one go.