APC P6GC 6 Outlet/120V Power-Saving Timer Essential SurgeArrest, 3 foot cord

I have a few plants at work and, unfortunately, am not near a window. (Yay for cubicle mazes.) So I have some LED grow lights to help my plants along. I was looking at single and dual socket timers to make my life easier, and to help my plants on weekends. Then I saw this surge protector power strip with a timer for LESS than many of the timers I was looking at! It works beautifully AND it's safer AND you have far more timed outlets to use!The instructions kind of suck however. What was especially confusing until I figured it out, is that the timer only seems to turn things on or off AT the time specified. So if the time is, say, 6:50am when you're programming the timer to turn on at 7am, it'll turn on for you as expected. BUT if the time is, say, 7:10am when you're programming the timer to turn on at 7am, it won't turn on for almost another 24 hours when it FINALLY gets around to 7am again. As a computer programmer, I find that logic pretty poor in design. HOWEVER, knowing that bad logic, to fix it, after you're done programming your timers, set the clock time to 1 minute before your timer would go on, let it go on naturally, and then fix the time to be correct again. Works like a charm.In theory I think you might even be able to use the override button instead of resetting the clock. But the documentation was unclear if doing that would be a permanent override (forever ignoring the timers), or just a temporary override (so that the next timer-state-change would cancel the override). Not sure. Wasn't worth the effort to test and find out after having already solved the problem by changing the clock. But it might be helpful to someone setting theirs up for the first time to try.The one thing that baffles me about this device however is why there are so many programmable timers when they ALL turn ALL of the sockets on/off simultaneously. It'd have made more sense if you could turn on/off individual sockets. But you can't. So why so many timers? It makes no sense to me. But maybe someone will find it useful?

Very good surge protectors. Had many sudden, power outages, and so far, no damage has occurred to printers, computers, laptops. These have timers on them, which you can program to have the surge protector go off automatically. I find this very handy, especially when I leave the office for the day and if I forget to turn off the monitor, the programmed surge protector goes off at the specified time, and so does everything else. Users need to program the current Time and Day first, so all the timed schedules that you input thereafter, will fall into place. In the right, bottom corner of the screen, there is a P for p.m., or an A for a.m...it is really tiny, so have a magnifying glass handy. The top shows the Day for the week (i.e., MO for Monday, TU for Tuesday, etc.)., the far left side shows you ON or OFF. When setting the clock (Time), especially the minutes, you need to scroll through one minute at a time...I haven't found a way to go through 15 min. intervals anyway. There are 6 outlets, and yes, you can program each one differently. You will set the timer for each outlet pretty much the same way you did to set the current Time and Day, the difference is that, instead of pressing the TIME button, you will press the TIMER button. EAch time you press the Timer button, you will see a number to the left...this indicates the numher of the outlet you are programming...if you see the number 1, then you are programming the 1st outlet, if you see the number 2, then you are programming the 2nd outlet, etc. To the right of the number is either an "ON" or "OFF". Again, it's very tiny, and barely visible, but it's there. This tells you when you want to turn the particular outlet on or off. For example, if I see "ON" next to the number 1, and I input the time 6:00 a.m., then that particular outlet will power on at 6:00 am. I can then program this same outlet to power "OFF" at whatever time I want.

1. The timer feature stop working eventually.2. When the timer does not work, 5 out of 6 outlets cannot be used in a regular power strip manner.It is design flaw, which makes all unit go to non recyclable trash.3. APC used tamper proof screws in the unit design which renders it non reparable .Conclusion : The device is bad for environment , do not bother to buy.