Does this thing still work? I was looking at the app reviews and it's all a bunch of one stars saying it doesn't work. Trying to find a decent sump pump smart outlet.
sorry for the long response, the tl;dr is PumpSpy is good, app is bad. You still get email/text alerts even if the app isn’t working, so I’d still call this device worth it. Otherwise a one year update for those interested: The PumpSpy outlet and tracking itself has been working well since I got about a year ago now. It’s been pretty reliable, haven't had issues with it tracking pump cycles or connecting to WIFI so it can upload the tracking info. Initially I didn't put the water level sensor in my sump pump pit, but I put that in a few months ago. I haven't had any failures on my pump, so no real life tests on the PumpSpy yet. I have lost internet and power a couple times the last year, and it does alert me for that, so that is functioning. I also unplugged my sump pump once to test my battery backup system, and it did alert me of “water level alert”, so that worked too. Otherwise rather uneventful as far as the device itself. One thing to note before I explain the issues I’ve seen with the app, the app does not have to function to get the alerts. So even if app not functioning on your phone you will still get the text/email alerts. The app and the features in the app on the other hand... yes, there are problems. First off and one of the most annoying is the app stops 'connecting'. I don't look at the app every day, so couldn't give exactly how long it takes to 'disconnect' but I probably looked at it a week or two ago and its disconnected again as I’m looking at it just now. I put the disconnect in quotes, because it’s just the app not connecting to your account. The PumpSpy is still working and uploading data (as long as the LED ring around the plug is green). So, you’re not losing data, just can’t see it on the phone. There is no error for this, it just will not show a device, under ‘Select Device’. Even if you try to ‘add new device’ it still wont work. The fix is to go into your app settings, select PumpSpy then select 'Storage' and then 'clear data' and "clear cache'. then you can log in to the app again and your PumpSpy will now show up and you see your data again. This is on android for reference, I’m not sure the process to clear data and cache on iOS. Next issue would be the time mismatch between the “Last Cycle Time” and the cycle history detail of an hour off that I explained in the video. A year later and they still haven’t fixed that. Not that big of deal, but just to know that the cycle history displays in eastern time. Then another issue to mention is I asked support about adding an export feature when I got this. They told me that the export feature would be coming soon and just to let them know once I had more data and they’d send me an export file. Well I asked them a few months ago for an export file and their response was ‘We are not staffed to provide these reports at this time”. Rather disappointing for me since they still haven’t added an export feature. They said it’s still in the plans, but no timeline of when they’ll add it in the future. They show you the last 90 days on the app, but there’s no way to see previous to that, so for many people that is probably fine, I just like to be able to download the data that I’m collecting. The Power and Water Level menu times are rather useless as they just show status as I mentioned in the video, they haven’t updated the app at all that I can tell, so functionality is the same as I showed in the video. Overall I’d still say this device is worth it, as it does function as a text/email alert system and usage tracking is something nice to be able to monitor, but it would be nice if they’d fix the issues with the app. Maybe I can make an update video for this? If there is any interest let me know.
Anyone else looking at this product find something better?? I would really like to know the water level in my sump pit. Some years it goes totally dry and others it is quite active. Just really mostly out of curiosity I would like to know the water level and how often it runs..
Yes they did say the summary page is showing in eastern time zone, and I'm in central. So it's an hour ahead for me. I think they said they are working on fixing that.
