Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I was concerned whether or not this would work on my parents' house, built in the 50's or 60's, not really sure when it was built, but it is definitely an older home. The wiring for the light switch did not have a white, black, and ground like most newer homes today. Instead, it had one black and one white wire which simply made a loop, the black wire brought AC power to the switch, the white wire takes AC back to the light, no neutral and no ground, I was just scratching my head, 'surely this could not possibly work I thought'. As a last resort, I read the instructions (highly recommended), and there was a sample wiring diagram showing how to use this device with the wiring I had. The instructions are well written, easy to follow, and have a variety of different wiring methods to match most (if not all) different wiring configurations. To my surprise, it worked perfectly. It was easy to program, To turn the light on/off, you just push the button. You can set from one to seven different program on/off times. Each of the seven programs, can be set to run every day, or pick single day, either one counts as only one program. Once set like you want it, press and hold the on/off button 3 seconds and it will change to/from manual mode to 'AUTO' or vice versa, Even if it is running the programming sequences, you can still turn the lights on/off, just push the button, it will pick up right where it left off on the next programmed time. If you loose power to your house, it retains all the programming, so you don't have to do it again. Overall, very cool. The best recommendation I can give is this, I purchased these for my parents' house, for when they travel. I like them so well, I'm getting 3 more for my own house when I get back, I'm putting them in my own house. [Edit Updated Info] I'm changing my rating from 5 to 2 stars. My review above still stands from the viewpoint of functionality. The reduction in rating comes from reliability issues I have experienced. I currently have purchased about 10+ of these. There is one other review which mentions this briefly, but few have paid attention and they are correct. I now have 3 of these units go bad, each time the result of nothing more than the light bulb blowing. Of the three failures, I've actually seen this twice, when I turn on the light, and the light bulb does that familiar 'pop' when you turn on the lights and the bulb blows, now the timer is completely dead. I've had some 30+ years of electronics repair experience, so after three of these start piling up on my work bench, I decided to investigate. I had a good idea of what I suspected, and sure enough, the circuit has a MOV (metal oxide varistor ) which is often used in electronic circuits and is designed to blow with voltage overloads. (you can think of it somewhat like a fuse). MOV's are designed to destroy themselves to protect the electronic circuits. On every unit, this MOV was bad. Removing it, the timer started working again. Of course, it should not be returned to service until this MOV is replaced, however the rating for this MOV is quiet low in my humble opinion and will not stand the brief overload from a blown or 'blowing' bulb, nor probably a power surge such as what you may get in a thunder storm. Since this requires electronics repair experience, the ability to solder and to remove and replace electronic components, this may well be beyond the repair ability for most people. These are covered for some period of time by the warranty, but you'll probably have the hassle of sending the bad one back, etc. These are quiet nifty little devices, it's too bad Honeywell didn't design the fault portion to be a little more hefty, it's really surprising it is so fragile.