iDevices Switch Review: Two Still Running After a Decade

By Matthew Easterday · Published Aug 7, 2026 First-hand tested

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Ten years ago this month I posted a six-minute review of the iDevices Switch to my YouTube channel. I’ve bought two more since, and two are plugged in right now. One of them turned on a light in my bedroom about an hour ago.

My original review, uploaded August 13, 2016.

These plugs are still in daily use, having outlived both the company that made them and the app that configured them.

What happened to iDevices

On April 25, 2017, Hubbell Incorporated, a large electrical manufacturer, announced it had acquired iDevices. The press release said the usual things about driving the next wave of innovation.

I was already using one when that was announced. My first came direct from iDevices in 2016, which is the unit in the video above, eight months before the acquisition. I bought more from Amazon afterwards, on July 11 and August 27, 2017, so I was still buying them months after Hubbell took over. At least three over the years, probably more.

The acquisition changed nothing visible at the time. The product was on shelves, well reviewed, and I kept buying it. Whatever happened to iDevices happened later, with no announcement.

What followed was a slow fade. As an owner, my read is that development on these plugs stopped around 2019, after which the firmware and feature set never changed again and nothing suggested anyone was still working on them. The iDevices Connected app limped on a while longer, and now sits at version 4.1.18, last updated January 30, 2023, with a release note reading “Bug fixes and performance improvements.” It still only requires iOS 10.

I could not find a formal end-of-life announcement; support just stopped.

The iDevices cloud is the part that did shut down. I can’t get the company’s own cloud access working any more, yet both plugs still respond, including when I’m away from home.

Why they still work

HomeKit pairing is local. Once an accessory is paired, the encrypted relationship lives between the accessory and your home’s hubs, on your own network. It doesn’t need the manufacturer’s cloud, app, or continued existence. Switching on that bedroom light never touches a server in someone else’s data center.

Remote access works the same way, and people get this wrong. When I turn the plug on from the office, the request goes through my own home hub, an Apple TV or HomePod sitting in my house, brokered by Apple. The manufacturer was never in that path.

You can see the age in the protocol itself. Every other HomeKit accessory in my house advertises HomeKit Accessory Protocol version 1.1. These two advertise 1.0. They’re the only accessories left here still speaking the original version, and Apple Home in 2026 talks to them without complaint. Their configuration number is still 1, meaning neither has had a configuration change since the day I paired it.

What aged best

In my 2016 review I read the feature list off the box. Two of the bullets were “Side-Facing Outlet” and “Discrete and Compact Design.” Marketing copy. I didn’t think much of it.

It turned out to be the best thing about this plug, and I only know that because I now own the alternative. Three Meross MSS110 plugs run in the same house. The Meross units stand proud of the wall, socket facing straight out, so whatever you plug in sticks out further still. The iDevices Switch turns the socket ninety degrees. Plug and cable hug the wall.

Behind a nightstand or a couch, that’s the difference between furniture sitting flush and furniture sitting a few inches out.

What aged worst

The Switch has a built-in multicolor LED night light. It sounded good on the box. In a decade of ownership I’ve never once found it useful. Too dim and too oddly placed to light anything, too visible to ignore. A kitschy novelty.

It’s worse than useless because of how it’s exposed to HomeKit. The accessory presents two separate services under one accessory: the switched outlet, and the night light. Both are controllable. Both read as light-adjacent to Siri.

So when I ask to turn off a light, HomeKit sometimes picks wrong and toggles the night light, a behavior I have disliked for ten years. The thing I wanted off stays on, and a small colored LED changes state instead. The cause is the bundling of two controllable services into a single accessory.

Hands-on notes

The review above is dated August 13, 2016, from a unit bought direct from iDevices before Hubbell owned them. More came from Amazon in July and August 2017. At least three in total, and two are still in daily service today.

The one I use most sits in my bedroom running a string of warm Christmas tree lights. Not seasonally. Year-round. They’re my ambient light, and instead of switching on a harsh overhead fixture I turn on the warm string. A boring everyday use case, and the reason I can say the switching still works. If it had gone flaky I’d have noticed within a day.

Both still respond in Apple Home and both still advertise themselves on my network. Neither has needed a re-pair, a factory reset, or a power cycle that I can remember. Their accessory names in Home are both still “Christmas Tree,” which tells you how long ago I set them up and how little I’ve touched them since.

The night light problem is the only recurring annoyance, and it happens often enough that I notice it most weeks.

Should you buy one today?

No, and mostly you can’t. These are discontinued, and putting decade-old Wi-Fi hardware on your network second-hand is a poor idea regardless of how well mine have aged. Firmware frozen at 1.9.11 means any security issue found from here on is permanent.

Ten years of service doesn’t make it a good buy today. I keep running mine because they’re already paired, already on my network, and doing a job well. I wouldn’t go buy more.

I ran their thermostats too

The switches weren’t the only iDevices products I bought. My order history shows two iDevices Wi-Fi thermostats, model IDEV0005, ordered in July and September 2016, one for each zone in the house I lived in then.

They were straightforward to install and unremarkable to use. They stayed with that house when we moved, so I can’t tell you how they’re doing now, only that they gave me no trouble while I had them. The thermostat job here is done by a Meross MTS300.

All four iDevices products I owned across two houses were still working when the company stopped supporting them.

What I’d buy instead

The Meross MSS110 is the plug I reach for now, and I run three in the same house. It pairs locally over HomeKit, the property that matters most in this whole story, and costs a fraction of what the iDevices Switch did.

It isn’t a straight upgrade. The Meross socket faces straight out, so the plug and cable stand proud of the wall. You’re trading the side-facing outlet for a current, supported product, and for most people that’s the correct trade.

Meross also makes the garage controller I’ve run since 2024, if you want a second data point on how their hardware holds up: Meross MSG100 review.

Matthew Easterday

Runs the homekit.reviews test home, a real mixed Matter/Thread/HomeKit house. Everything reviewed here was set up, paired, and lived with. See how I test →