Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was really excited when I found this item, I am trying to control heat lamps for my chicken coop. After setting what I thought were the right settings I installed it in my coop. The next morning I came in and no heat lamp! I thought here we go the bad reviews are coming true. Long story short I figured out what you are setting on your temperature settings is the "deadband" temperature range. For HEATING the "ON" temp is the minimum temperature (how cold) you want your item to get to before the outlet is turned ON. The "OFF" temp is the maximum temperature (how hot) you want your item to get to before the outlet is turned OFF. For COOLING the "ON" temp is the maximum temperature (how hot) you want your item to get to before the outlet is turned ON. The "OFF" temp is the minimum temperature (how cold) you want your item to get to before the outlet is turned OFF. So in my case I want HEATING mode, I set my "ON" temp to 40F and my "OFF" temp to 48F. This means, if the temp in the coop is 39.9F or COLDER the outlet is turned ON. As the coop warms up to between 40F and 48F the outlet will remain ON. Once the temp in the coop is 48.1F or HOTTER the outlet will turn OFF. As the coop cools from above 48F to 40F the outlet will remain OFF. Once the temp hits 39.9F or COLDER the outlet will turn back ON. For cooling just reverse the order of your temperatures. You cannot set the ON/OFF temps to the same number, for HEATING the ON temp needs to be less than the OFF temp (ON=40, OFF=50), for COOLING the ON temp needs to be greater than the OFF temp (ON=50, OFF=40). The range between 40-50 for heating or 50-40 for cooling is what is called the "DEADBAND" where the outlet will stay ON if it was ON when the temp is in this range or will stay OFF if it was OFF when the temp is in this range. Only when the temp is outside of this range will the switch turn ON or OFF. The other thing the instructions does not tell you is what the three led dots to the left each number means. There are two led dots at the top edge of the numbers. If the left dot is on you are in HEATING mode, if the right dot is on you are in COOLING mode. The third dot at the bottom edge of the numbers is ON when the outlet is on and it blinks if you have set the Power-On Delay to a value greater than 0 and it is counting down before turning ON. It will also blink when it is first plugged in or after a power failure and the Power-On Delay is not set to 0. I would have given it 5 stars if the instructions were better, the next test will to see how long it continues to work. Hopefully this explanation will help others from returning a "not working as advertised" product, I know I was about to return mine!