Power sockets with WiFi/app interface may be useful, so I bought a couple of LEDVANCE units with three 230V outputs that can be controlled individually, plus built-in USB charger.
They were quite nice as long as they worked, with control and power monitoring via the Smart+ app.
However, they didn’t last very long. The first one died already after a year, and I returned it to the store, for a refund. The second one kept going for almost two years before it stopped responding.
Out of curiosity, I decided to open it and look for obvious errors. I was hoping to find screws underneath the rubber pads, but the plastic lids were connected together with some metal studs that had to be drilled out. The manufacturer clearly didn’t want this thing to be opened for repair.
What I expected to find was an X2 film capacitor that had derated to a fraction of its original capacitance. The problem cause turned out to be even more obvious: a bulging electrolytic cap.
From 470µF to a cross between a resistor and a small capacitor, during only one to two years of use, and it was not even stored/used in a hot environment. This is definitely a component of extremely poor quality, and when the deterioration reaches a critical point, the WiFi Power Socket dies.
For comparison, I’ve restored more than 80 year old broadcast receivers where the electrolytic caps are still good (they just needed reforming).
Replacing the defective capacitor did bring the device back to life. Still, I decided to throw it in the electronic waste.
Why discard the device after I got it working again? Because the PCB actually looked like this (!). I didn’t touch anything in this area. This is how it actually was shipped from the manufacturer. Apparently, the product needed to be redesigned, and instead of making a new PCB, they modified the circuit board in a highly amateurish way; cutting a PCB track, adding several extra components (enclosed in heat shrink), and spilling out large blobs of solder.
With poor quality components, messy design and unskilled modifications, these products simply cannot be trusted.
Retronics 
Leave a comment