Belkin Conserve Socket Energy-Saving Outlet with Timer,F7C009q,White

I bought this energy-saving outlet for one specific purpose - my flatiron. As you may guess, I did not do this because I was concerned so much with saving energy (though that's nice too), but rather was concerned with safety. Although I quite like my flatiron, it is not one of those that has a timed off setting, which means I can accidentally leave it on (and have done so twice). Even when I haven't left it on, sometimes I can't remember if I've turned it off, which means that I usually end up turning my car around and running up to my apartment to check, which is frustrating and is almost always a waste of time. This gadget has saved me that misery.I now have it constantly set to the 30 minute setting. Since I have long hair, it usually take me around 20 to 25 minutes to flatiron my hair, which means that even if I do happen to leave my flatiron on, within five to ten minutes of finishing my hair, this Belkin device will cut the power. Fabulous! This gives me peace of mind. Why don't I just get into the habit of unplugging my iron every time? No real answer, I just can't seem to get into the habit.This device is ridiculously easy. There is a switch on the side where you can set it to 30 minutes, 3 hours, or 6 hours, depending on how long you want whatever is plugged in to receive electricity. Then there is a button on the top that you press to activate the charging time and the button glows green to let you know it's on. Until you do this, whatever you've plugged in will not charge or power on.There are a couple minor downsides. This is pretty bulky, so expect it to take up the majority of your outlet. I have to unplug it to plug anything else in the other outlet. Annoying, but certainly not a deal-breaker; after all, you'd imagine that something like this would have to be somewhat bulky. Second, the green light on top is very faint and I usually have use my hand to shade the button to see whether it's on or off. This could be a good or bad thing depending on where you plan on using this. If you're using it someplace you plan on sleeping, you may like this feature. In the age of DVRs, computers, external hard drives, etc. that always seem to emit some sort of light, even when not being used, sometimes it's nice not to have another glowing object in the room.Overall, excellent product that works well and is priced fairly.

Background: pre-31/Dec 2012 I had an Enercell power strip with debatable powers of either surge protection or electricity-use reduction. I'm one of those people that switch off their power strip/surge protectors; when seated at my desk I only need to lean a few inches (maybe a foot at most) towards the floor to knock the green-lit selector into the off position.My Enercell worked fine; however, while purchasing beginning-of-the-year crap, I decided to buy a surge protector with a wall insert that was flush with the wall rather than a protrusion (note: yes I know that last part wasn't exactly technical), and was tempted by the promise of being able to 'manage [my] power use via remote control'.These are not the ho-hum benefit statements of yore; Belkin is promising, in effect, to add seconds (possibly ten seconds on aggregate) to my life. And remember kids, we are ALL selling convenience......and so I bought it, and it screamed from some state in the interior of this country (with the other crap for the year that is now upon us) to solve the "energy cliff" which I was so precariously teetering off of. I unplugged everything, rewired it all into the Belkin, and like Link holding up the Master Sword, held the remote above my head and clicked.(!)And it didn't bloody work. I repeatedly clicked it, and it repeatedly didn't work.I unplugged it all, plugged everything back into the Enercell, and started reading the manual. And then I logged back onto Amazon to read the reviews, somewhat like your doing now (only somwhat because you are actually reading an unboxing epic), when I noticed in the preview pics that the remote was mounted on the wall.In order for it to be mounted on the wall, there would have to be a wall mount. But there was none in the box! They denied me a wall mount! I was certain that words would be exchanged with a Belkin customer service representative!But nay! Upon closer inspection, I noticed the other pics with the remote out of the wall mount...and realized it came shipped inside of the wall mount. It was like studying epistemology for the first time, all over again.Quite frankly, whatever time would have been saved by purchasing the Belkin Conserve Switch Energy-Saving Surge Protector with Remote has been spent writing this review. Buy it, get what you expected, and always remember friends...RTFM, yo.