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I want something with a web interface and I can just remap a port on my router to present that (secure) web interface, then I can control it myself.

Here. It, too, wants to phone home for some reason, but blocking the device at the router stops that.

It's 2016 (!!) and most of us still have very little control or monitoring over the power sockets around our homes,

I'd suggest X10, but apparently it is an incredible "security hole" that people can actually control outlets around the house. The specific comment was about wireless X10 and how much fun it is to screw your friend by toggling his lights, but if you're standing on the front step of your friend's house you can plug in your wired X10 controller to an outside outlet and do the same thing with no need for wireless at all.

Then I guess you should have made a better product.

We don't know that the product isn't good. All we know is that there is a convenience option that has a security issue, but which is trivially eliminated by prudent network management. The device itself may function flawlessly and do exactly what you need it to do.

For example, this has a similar "call home to Momma" feature, but by simply blocking outbound connections from it at the router you solve the problem completely. You're left with a pretty reliable remote controllable power switch. I've got four of them in the field and they work great.

And if you read the Techcrunch article, you'll see what the brouhaha is about, and some pretty amazing statements by the product reviewer. He claims that all you need to know is the MAC address. "If anybody knows the MAC address of one of your sockets, they can control it from anywhere in the world." I'm guessing that the "access code" to control the device through the Chinese server is just the MAC address of the device, since the MAC address would never normally appear outside your gateway.

Then he says this: "and a normal home router configuration won't block this. You need to explicitly firewall off the server (it's 115.28.45.50) in order to protect yourself." No, actually, it is as simple as blocking the DEVICE, whose address you know, from the WAN, and every home router I've ever used has that capability. Probably for just such situations.

"and if you do this then you'll also entirely lose the ability to control the device from outside your home," If you can control it from your device while it's on your WiFi inside the gateway, then you can use a VPN from outside into your network and control it just like you were at home, if you even need to go that far. "Entirely" is hyperbole.

I've come across internet power switches like this* before, and all it took to stop the carnage and destruction of the known universe is to ... block the device at the router. Did I "entirely lose the ability to control" them? Of course not. I put a port forwarding inbound rule in my router so that a port I know on the WAN forwards the control commands to the device, and I can control it from anywhere in the world. The control uses basic HTTP auth so bad guys can't just figure out that port X at address Y is an internet switch and turn it on and off. It just doesn't have the ability to create outbound connections to China anymore. This is such basic stuff that I can't imagine the author of the review didn't know this.

* 3gstore says that the connection was intended to allow remote control through some google interface, but it wasn't implemented. It doesn't matter, the device doesn't talk to China anyway. A much worse problem was that the NTP server addresses were not configurable so I could not tell the device to use the local stratum 1 server -- until I put the names of the hardwired NTP servers into the hosts table for the DNS server on that network and pointed them to it. Oila, another seemingly unsolvable problem resolved.

We have a Cradlepoint MBR1200B with Verizon LTE service as tertiary fail over for our headquarters. The router is about $800 for router + modem + replacement 4G antennas. $500 for a static IP from Verizon. $50 a month for a sim and basic service. (If we ever need it, we expect to pay overage.)

http://3gstore.com/product/524...

But all the 3g modems I've seen are USB, except for one which is Wifi.

Maybe you should look harder.

No affiliation with them -- just a satisfied customer.

But all the 3g modems I've seen are USB, except for one which is Wifi.

Maybe you should look harder.

No affiliation with them -- just a satisfied customer.