Woods ImportDigital Countdown Timer

I purchased two of these socket timers so that I could use them to recharge my electronic devices. So far they work great. They are as simple as can be - you hit the one solitary button on the front to cycle through the timing options. The device is either continuously on (1 press), on for one, two, four, or eight hours (with 2, 3, 4, or 5 presses respective). The socket cover on the front of the device even rotates so you can close the plug in case you have children or pets that like to play with sockets (something I didn't even realize when I purchased).I have only one complaint which is why I gave 4/5 stars. It has a rather insignificant, yet obvious design flaw. When designing a timer whose purpose is to... well, time something, wouldn't it make sense to have those functions first? What I'm trying to say is, shouldn't the "hold" function (which leaves the socket continuously "on") be the very last option? They designed it so that this is the first thing that happens when you press the button. But, if you bought this thing because it is a "timer" you clearly are more interested in timing something (a lamp or battery charger) for one, two, four, or eight hours. So that means that every time you go to use it you have to hit that button an extra time. For 99.9% of the people out there, they are probably saying "so what?" I would tend to agree with them except I'm an engineer and I notice things like this. Certainly not a deal breaker.Oh - one more thing. The company that sells these things charges double the S&H if you order two (and I imagine triple if you get 3 and so on). They are small devices (about the size of a cell phone) that even came in the same package. I'm left to wonder why I was charged double the S&H for something that is small and ships relatively easy in one simple package.Update 05/27/2016:I still use and love these timers. For some reason Amazon changed the picture to the slightly more square device you may be looking at now. When I placed this review it was on a device that is more of an oval shape, which I still see in some of the pictures. This may represent a new version offered by the company or just a mistake by Amazon.

I am using this to control an electric space heater in the basement rec-room because it was left on once while we went out for a couple of hours one day. Not a good thing! By using the countdown timer to control the heater, I can now turn it on for the desired duration and it will turn itself off if I forget to. You simply keep pressing the single button on the front of the unit to cycle through the durations and to turn it off.I would have given this 5 stars except there are a couple of minor things I don't like. First of all, the very first setting is "Continuous On" which seems a bit silly, if you ask me. Intuitively, I would think the the first setting should be the shortest duration, not infinite duration! So, this means I just have to cycle past the first setting and then choose my duration in ascending order. The other thing I don't like is that choices for durations are rather long (1, 2, 4, or 8 hours). For my application (i.e. space heater), I would have preferred much smaller increments. I would think that most people would use something like this for stuff that they don't want to accidentally leave on for safety reasons. Most of these things are normally used for short periods of time. Certainly though, for other applications (e.g. lighting) the longer durations would be quite appropriate.Overall I'm very happy. It solved my immediate problem and gives me some peace of mind for a very fair price.

It's nice simple to use, you can have it constantly off or constantly on. I'd sort of like to see more outlets on it or a usb port, but hey I can just plug a power strip into it and do that.I use it for a little headphone amplifier while my music player is plugged into it. The music player has a sleep timer, the amplifier does not and it produces a bit of heat and wastes electricity so I thought I should get something like a timer, all I saw were those annoying loud analog timers before I saw this, which would be very annoying because I'm using it to listen to music with headphones that don't isolate outside sounds, so I needed something digital and simple, when I'm tired with the lights off I can't be fiddling for so much settings.Just a simple one button approach top left is ON, below that 1 hr, below that 2hr. I usually let it go for 2 hours and listen to an album or two and I fall asleep somewhere during that time. I wake up, the amp is off, not burning hot and I'm good to go. I might even turn it on another sleep timer just so I don't have to worry about it before going to work.

I just got this timer from amazon. Here's my review:Pro's: The best part about this timer is that it offers a 2 hour setting. 2 hours seems to be the right amount of time for charging an iPhone or a laptop without overcharging it.Con's: Minor annoyances but here they are: first there is no memory -- so everytime you turn it on you have to set the time. For me that means that I will always have to press the button multiple times to get to the setting I want, even though I use the same amount of time everytime I use it. The other issue is the LED's are a little bright and can be slightly annoying depending on where you place the timer - they should have used smaller LED's.Overall it's a good timer and I would have given it 4.5 stars if I could have. Also see my review on the Belkin timer which I also have, so if you're not sure which to buy this timer has better settings if you need it for charging electronics, whereas the Belkin timer is better for lamps and appliances.