Pirep of Andoer Wireless Mobile Cell Phone PDA GSM Remote Control 3 Socket Power Outlet Smart Switch

[Houman]

Hi, just as a service to others, I know there is a vendor on this forum that sells a switch box, although I have been told that he has an excellent product, I found something much cheaper and work very well. I was looking to buy a switch box after I installed my engine heater, but the price was a bit against my CB membership and the vendor was unsure if it would work in Canada GSM network so I went looking for an alternative.

After some research, I found on Amazon the Andoer Wireless power socket control unit. I have to say that at 45$, I didn’t have much to lose to try it, instead of the much more expensive alternative. I got it couple of weeks ago and it took me about 15 minutes to make it work. Once I figured out how to activate the sim card outside of the device by calling the number to activate it, the device worked perfectly after I put it in and follow the instructions.

The unit accepts commands by text or voice calls and dialing numbers, I find the text option superbe, as I can text the device to tell it which of the 3 sockets I want to turn on or off and it responds back with a confirmation. The only down side is that it is evident that the instructions where written by a non-native english speaking person, but still easy to understand and configure.

http://www.amazon.com/Andoer-Wireless-Mobile-Control-110-220V/dp/B00TB612FG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450367102&sr=8-1&keywords=Andoer+Wireless+Mobile+Cell+Phone+PDA+GSM+Remote+Control

Again, nothing against the more complete and sophisticated alternative here, but this meets my needs and permits me to proudly retain my membership of the cheap bastards club !!!

As for the service, I got a Petro Canada Mobility sim card for 12$ and with a 6 months/25 prepaid service, I can renew another 6 months again for 25$ without losing the money left on my original 25$.

[Marauder]

Hi, just as a service to others, I know there is a vendor on this forum that sells a switch box, although I have been told that he has an excellent product, I found something much cheaper and work very well. I was looking to buy a switch box after I installed my engine heater, but the price was a bit against my CB membership and the vendor was unsure if it would work in Canada GSM network so I went looking for an alternative.

After some research, I found on Amazon the Andoer Wireless power socket control unit. I have to say that at 45$, I didn’t have much to lose to try it, instead of the much more expensive alternative. I got it couple of weeks ago and it took me about 15 minutes to make it work. Once I figured out how to activate the sim card outside of the device by calling the number to activate it, the device worked perfectly after I put it in and follow the instructions.

The unit accepts commands by text or voice calls and dialing numbers, I find the text option superbe, as I can text the device to tell it which of the 3 sockets I want to turn on or off and it responds back with a confirmation. The only down side is that it is evident that the instructions where written by a non-native english speaking person, but still easy to understand and configure.

http://www.amazon.com/Andoer-Wireless-Mobile-Control-110-220V/dp/B00TB612FG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1450367102&sr=8-1&keywords=Andoer+Wireless+Mobile+Cell+Phone+PDA+GSM+Remote+Control

Again, nothing against the more complete and sophisticated alternative here, but this meets my needs and permits me to proudly retain my membership of the cheap bastards club !!!

As for the service, I got a Petro Canada Mobility sim card for 12$ and with a 6 months/25 prepaid service, I can renew another 6 months again for 25$ without losing the money left on my original 25$.

Thanks for posting this. I'm done with Philip and his SwitchBox. Shame on me...

I will check this unit out and take a chance on it.

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[Marauder]

Ordered mine yesterday and looks like it was shipped already. The wattage is better than the Switchbox, plus it has 3 ports and all 3 have indicator lights on them.

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[Brandontwalker]

Ordered mine yesterday and looks like it was shipped already. The wattage is better than the Switchbox, plus it has 3 ports and all 3 have indicator lights on them.

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Let me know what carrier you use. T-mobile compatible? This device + a text scheduling app will be the ticket. The Switchbox was too rich for my blood.

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[Marauder]

Ordered mine yesterday and looks like it was shipped already. The wattage is better than the Switchbox, plus it has 3 ports and all 3 have indicator lights on them.Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Let me know what carrier you use. T-mobile compatible? This device + a text scheduling app will be the ticket. The Switchbox was too rich for my blood.

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When I was troubleshooting the Switchbox, Larry from this site told me that T-Mobile and AT&T are GSM and Verizon (and I think he said Sprint) are CDMA. Done with Philip and Switchbox.

Shame on me being your illustrious leader of the Cheap Bast$&d Club for getting tricked into buying it.

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[Hank]

I've had nothing but good service from Phillip and the Switchbix. Living in West-by-God, Virginny, that thing was the bee's knees! Kept me from driving through the snow to plug in the plane the night before, and several times from driving back to the airport in the morning to unplug because ceilings were down, the weather didn't clear, it was snowing again, etc. 

Now that I'm back where I belong, it's not as important. But we had frost this morning, and are expecting it again tomorrow . . . Then back up into the 70s for Christmas. 

[Mcstealth]

This thread wins the longest Topic Title competition.

 

[Marauder]

I've had nothing but good service from Phillip and the Switchbix. Living in West-by-God, Virginny, that thing was the bee's knees! Kept me from driving through the snow to plug in the plane the night before, and several times from driving back to the airport in the morning to unplug because ceilings were down, the weather didn't clear, it was snowing again, etc. 

Now that I'm back where I belong, it's not as important. But we had frost this morning, and are expecting it again tomorrow . . . Then back up into the 70s for Christmas. 

The concept is great. Have you actually had a problem with the box? He was fine until he found out I bought a SIM from T-Mobile and installed it. (Something he said I could do). I bought the SIM last year and it worked fine until I went to charge it this year. Now the box doesn't work and he won't tell me what settings I need to check with T-Mobile to check. Like it is some sort of guarded industry secret.

Thanks to the help of others on this site, I know the module he built comes from available parts. We suspect the box is broken and it is not a SIM problem.

Hank -- if I sent you the emails that Philip and I had back and forth, you would be thinking differently. Like I said on the other thread. The SIM sales are good side business for him. Like the printer business. You don't make money from the sale of printers, you make it on the cartridges.

Considering the problems I had, he could have handled it better. Telling me the SIM is the problem because it was not set up correctly and then not telling me what the setup should be -- well, is not good customer service. And just so others don't think I'm a cheap bast$&d on all of this; not only did I buy the SwitchBox from him, I also bought the IceBox and a SIM during the first year.

I checked out Houman's link, liked what I saw and will give it a try.

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[JaredDavis]

The picture of the bottom of the box shows frequencies 900/1800Mhz. Who in the US uses those frequencies?

The source below doesn't show one in US. It also doesn't show one in Canada. Perhaps the chart is wrong.

http://www.worldtimezone.com/gsm.html

 

Doesn't look like it will work with T-Mobile:  https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4988

Edited December 19, 2015 by JaredDavis

[peevee]

There are several similar options to what is posted here. 

Quite frankly all Philip does is buy the GSM relay on eBay or direct from China, run a couple wires across the relay, slap a sticker on it and sell it for 3x as much. He did a nice job having the app developed I guess. 

 

Sorry, but that's all it is

 

Do your research and make sure it supports the correct GSM band and you're all set. That's the only trick to finding one that works. 

 

 Don't believe me? 

 

http://m.ebay.com/itm/GSM-AUTO-DC-2CH-Output-GSM-SMS-Remote-Control-Relay-Contact-Switch-w-Time-Delay-/121274474812?nav=SEARCH

It's the same. His app will even control it. 

[DXB]

Can anyone confirm this works in the US and the best prepaid simcard to use here?  I would order in a heartbeat.

[peevee]

4 hours ago, DXB said:

Can anyone confirm this works in the US and the best prepaid simcard to use here?  I would order in a heartbeat.

tmobile requires 1900mhz GSM, so that device will not work as near as I can tell, at least on tmobile. I'm asking a friend that just bought one which he got, because it was $36 and works with tmobile. WIll report back.

 

[Marauder]

The picture of the bottom of the box shows frequencies 900/1800Mhz. Who in the US uses those frequencies?

The source below doesn't show one in US. It also doesn't show one in Canada. Perhaps the chart is wrong.

http://www.worldtimezone.com/gsm.html

 

Doesn't look like it will work with T-Mobile:  https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-4988

I'm banking on Chinese ingenuity. Houman was able to get his to work in Canada which shouldn't support 900/1800 MHz either. If it works, I got a good deal. If it doesn't, one of my friends in the blue countries will be getting a Christmas present from me or I will take Amazon up on their return policy

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[Marauder]

4 hours ago, DXB said: Can anyone confirm this works in the US and the best prepaid simcard to use here?  I would order in a heartbeat.

tmobile requires 1900mhz GSM, so that device will not work as near as I can tell, at least on tmobile. I'm asking a friend that just bought one which he got, because it was $36 and works with tmobile. WIll report back.

 

Let me know what your friend has and if it works for him.

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[peevee]

1 hour ago, Marauder said:

Let me know what your friend has and if it works for him.

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I'm pretty sure he has one that looks just like the amazon unit, so either some of them are different internally or they're all the same and they just don't list all the bands they work on, who knows. He's slow about the email, still waiting.

[larryb]

I would expect most of these devices are pretty universal and work on all of the bands. My Cellswitch uses the SIM900 module.

"Featuring an industry-standard interface, the SIM900 delivers GSM/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900MHz performance for voice, SMS, Data, and Fax in a small form factor and with low power consumption. With a tiny configuration of 24mm x 24mm x 3 mm, SIM900 can fit almost all the space requirements in your M2M applications, especially for slim and compact demands of design.

[Marauder]

I'm about to dissect the SwitchBox to see what is in it. I will give you guys a blow by blow description of the process.

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[Marauder]

I haven't turned a wrench on instrumentation for 20 years, but there was the distinctive odor of a superheated or fried component. Haven't seen anything cooked yet.

Does anyone know the function of each component? More importantly does anyone know who manufactures these. If they are commonly available and cheap, I may troubleshoot this and see if I can get it working.

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[Marauder]

Sorry for the hijack. I will move it over to my thread.

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[Houman]

10 hours ago, Marauder said:

I'm banking on Chinese ingenuity. Houman was able to get his to work in Canada which shouldn't support 900/1800 MHz either. If it works, I got a good deal. If it doesn't, one of my friends in the blue countries will be getting a Christmas present from me or I will take Amazon up on their return policy

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Well I was under the impression that the device I bought would support most GSM Network and took a chance on it. The only issue I had with it was that I had activate the SIM card before putting it in, I did so by calling the voice/txt number assigned to the SIM card, once that done, put it in the device, reset the password as described in the manual and voila, worked like a charm... It's nice to be able to control each of the 3 sockets individually, text message is easy to configure and understand the syntax of the message you need to send to it...

Let me know if you have trouble with it...

[Houman]

On December 19, 2015 at 0:24 PM, Mcstealth said:

This thread wins the longest Topic Title competition.

 

 funny, but basically I just took the title description of the device on Amazon and put a Pirep in front of it... Lol

[Marauder]

10 hours ago, Marauder said: I'm banking on Chinese ingenuity. Houman was able to get his to work in Canada which shouldn't support 900/1800 MHz either. If it works, I got a good deal. If it doesn't, one of my friends in the blue countries will be getting a Christmas present from me or I will take Amazon up on their return policy

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Well I was under the impression that the device I bought would support most GSM Network and took a chance on it. The only issue I had with it was that I had activate the SIM card before putting it in, I did so by calling the voice/txt number assigned to the SIM card, once that done, put it in the device, reset the password as described in the manual and voila, worked like a charm... It's nice to be able to control each of the 3 sockets individually, text message is easy to configure and understand the syntax of the message you need to send to it...

Let me know if you have trouble with it...

Was there anything in the documentation that talked about the different network systems?

[carl]

I love this HA HA

• "Wireless remote control water heaters, electric motors, electric doors, lights, fans, rice cookers and other appliances by your smart phone"

 

 

I need a rice cooker I can start when I'm not around!

[Houman]

16 minutes ago, Marauder said:

Was there anything in the documentation that talked about the different network systems?

Not sure, I'm down in Florida now and will be back home in a week, will let you know when I get there and look at the instructions.

But as I said in the Pirep, the instructions are badly written, many typos and nonsensical phrases. English is not my 1st language and I still can do better than what they did in the instructions that came with the device... 

 

 

[Marauder]

16 minutes ago, Marauder said: Was there anything in the documentation that talked about the different network systems?

Not sure, I'm down in Florida now and will be back home in a week, will let you know when I get there and look at the instructions.

But as I said in the Pirep, the instructions are badly written, many typos and nonsensical phrases. English is not my 1st language and I still can do better than what they did in the instructions that came with the device... 

 

 

I'll let you know how it goes. Now stop hanging out with a bunch old fa$t Mooney pilots and enjoy your vacation!

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