Leviton Decora Programmable and Astronomical Timer Switch for Lights and Motor Loads, Neutral Wire Required, Single Pole or 3-Way, VPT24-1PZ, White with Ivory and Light Almond Faceplates

The Leviton VPT24-1PZ Vizia 24-Hour Programmable Indoor Timer with Astronomical Clock is an extremely flexible timer that handles many situations elegantly. That said, there is a trade-off in terms of complexity but if you can read, understand, and follow instructions then installation and setup will be simple, but possibly tedious activities.You need to make sure the device will physically fit into your intended electrical box. If it is already filled with other wires or too shallow this device might not fit. While you have the cover plate off to check, make sure there is a neutral (white) wire in the box as this device will not operate without it. There should also be wires for line (normally black), load (normally red or other color), ground (green or bare wire), and possibly one or more traveler wires from a three-way switch if you have a second switch on the circuit you want to control. The timer comes with white, ivory, and light almond face plates that are easily swapped. Additionally, you can purchase gray, black, or brown face plates if required [[ASIN:B003XDSILY Leviton VPTKT-B, Color Change Kit for Vizia + 24 Hour Timer].Installation is straightforward. The output is controlled by mechanical relay contacts, so it works well with most loads including CFL and LED lights. Ratings are 1800W Incandescent, 15A Resistive/ Inductive, 1 HP @ 120VAC motor. The instructions include examples of many wiring situations, and help is available directly from Leviton’s Techline at 1-800-824-3005.Set-up and programming is fairly easy but can be tedious if you need to program many events. Leviton provides a website to find your longitude and latitude for astronomical timekeeping, Provision for daylight savings time is built in, as are offsets from actual sunup/sundown times. Events (a single event is one on and one off cycle) may be programmed in increments as short as one minute duration. And it will store up to 50 of them. Internal battery backup maintains memory during power outages. Help with programming may be obtained from Leviton’s Techline at 1-800-824-3005 or by watching a series of videos online at the VPT24 Video Training Center on leviton.com.This is a great timer with a non-intuitive user interface. Once programmed, operation is easily understood from its lighted display. Just make sure to keep the instructions in a safe place if you want to change something later - you will definitely need them.

Started off with two of these and quickly bought three more, they've been installed for a few weeks now. The unit is large so it can take a bit of effort to arrange the wires in the junction box so that it fits, but I was able to do it with my existing junction boxes. I wanted white so I didn't have to change the color of the timer, but it comes with ivory and light almond covers too.Programming the switch to sunset/sunrise is not particularly intuitive so you'll need the instructions, but they are easy to follow. You can define 50 rules, so you can have a different program by day of the week and so on. The battery retains the programming for at least a few tens of minutes during a power outage (at least long enough for me to replace a light switch or electrical socket on the same circuit), but I don't know about longer outages.I like the look of the switch when installed, the screen is easy to read when the backlight is on and the display clearly shows when the light is going to come on. Tapping the button "advances" the light, so it returns to the normal programming the following day, so you can still control the light manually without turning off the timer completely (and risking forgetting to turn it back on later).The only negative that I have noticed is that you can't set up a program like "30 minutes before sunset to 30 minutes after sunrise" as far as I can tell. Other than that, it's great.

My 2nd Purchase of these timers switches. I recently installed more Leviton timer switches in my home, and I couldn't be happier! The quality is outstanding, and they are incredibly easy to use. The timers work flawlessly, allowing me to set my lights to turn on and off automatically, which adds convenience and security. The sleek design fits perfectly with my decor, and the installation was a breeze. Highly recommend these switches for anyone looking to upgrade their lighting system!

This is a great switch and really does what it's supposed to but the initial programming is a bit confusing. The instructions that come with it could be a little more precise or the way the unit's program is set up could be simpler but after you get it figured out it works perfectly. My wife and I were trying to find some new outside garage lights with dusk to dawn photocells in them but apparently these have become scarce. So I contacted an electrician friend of mine and consulted with him about installing a central photocell outside of my garage at which point he informed my about these "astronomical" type switches that work off of GPS dusk to dawn coordinates, he had recently installed one at his own home and was pleased with the function of it. If you want it to work off of GPS you must enter the "pro" mode on the programming, that part is not too hard to figure out, and then you will need to know the GPS coordinates of your house which you should be able to get off of your phone or your GPS in your car or the internet or just look at a globe if you have one. Okay so far that is not too bad to do but it gets confusing because you have to go to step (b) "Setting On/Off Events", it would seem like you wouldn't need this step but it is essential to do this after you program your GPS settings, at this point you still have to choose Event 1 and then enter Sundown as the time the lights come on and enter Sunup as the time the lights go off, it just seemed a bit redundant but this is the only way the program will start. Once you get it though it is well worth it, the lights come on and go off based on your time zone and the time of year it is and even compensates itself for Daylight savings, a great product that could be a little better with clearer instructions.