Form and Function

You can have both! I bought this to replace a dead Intermatic that lasted an amazing 5 years. Thanks to Amazon, I found this first -- Aube by Honeywell TI071/U Solar Programmable Timer Switch, White -- but, due to the fact that I have only two wires (no neutral) for my switch, I found this timer, which is made for single pole or 3-way switch applications. It has two black wires (line and load), yellow (3-way) and a green ground wire.

The thing works like a charm and is very easy to install -- with helpful, legible, literate instructions that walk you through the process. They thought this through to the end: it not only comes with caps but the wires are labeled and pre-stripped, to boot.

I'm using this timer to control a 120-watt PAR38 driveway flood light, so my requirements are just for sunrise and sunset adjustments, but you can also set specific times to turn it on and off for different days. And it has a random mode, as well, I guess to fool potential burglars. You program sunrise and sunset via entering your city's longitude and attitude -- if it's not listed in the instructions just go to [...] to find where you are. And by the way, it's quite accurate and even has bias settings in case you want it to turn on later or off earlier, when it may still be light out or not quite dark yet (very cool).

I've had it a week now and it hasn't missed a beat -- no flickering or anything amiss to report. Long-term, we'll see. But based on its design, I feel pretty good about its reliability.

The one caveat about this device is that it needs the bulb in place to create the circuit, meaning that when the bulb burns out you need to pull out a tab from beneath the timer to cut the circuit before you change the bulb. (The directions state you should do this to avoid possibly shorting the timer out.) I tried it and it's easy enough to do when installed; no need to take the switch plate off or anything.

There really aren't too many timers like this out there, which I don't quite understand, since they are incredibly useful. And this one definitely is: useful, convenient, well engineered and really nice to look at. It goes without saying but highly recommended.