BOTTOM LINE: This works for drain flies. I love the automatic feature. The sticky paper seems plenty sticky.

LONG REVIEW: I originally purchased this device, because we always have a fruit fly problem towards the end of the summer when we are harvesting tomatoes and figs etc. I am so tired of cleaning up the little glass jars with vinegar and dead bugs that I decided to see if there was another way. After seeing reviews I decided to give this a try.

By the time it arrived I wasn't having as much of a problem with the fruit flies, but I was having a drain fly out break! Ugh. First time. So annoying. I thought it was under control, but turns out that they weren't breeding in my basement bathroom sink as I thought. Instead in the drain for the hot water heater in the furnace room in the basement (somewhere I rarely need to go) and then migrating to the bathroom. So after pouring boiling water down the sink and shower drain daily for way more than a week they were only getting worse. So a day after this arrived I piveted and moved this to the basement. (Before being moved it had caught one fruit fly and several gnats.)

This thing is definitely catching drain flies. Yay! See the photo. Now that I know what drain they were actually breeding in, I am positive that I will be able to finally get rid of these darn bugs with the combo of this little machine and the boiling water. Pouring boiling water kills any eggs supposedly... Anyway, back to the product.

AUTOMATIC FEATURE: I am also loving the automatic feature! Glad I decided to upgrade. I have ADD and not having to remember to turn it on every night is just one more item NOT on my plate. Especially now that it is in the basement vs the kitchen.

VARIOUS WAVELENGTHS: I have used both of the light features (steady vs rotating wavelengths) and I can't tell if one is better than the other. May depend on the type of bug? 🤷ðŸ¼"â'€ï¸ For the drain flies at least, they don't seem to be picky. I will keep experimenting.

STICKY PAPER: I did purchase another brand of the refills that are supposedly more sticky, but even the originals seem to be working just fine.

I also have a clothing moth infestation at the moment and I have major sugar ant too. (Seriously. What the? The universe is maybe trying to tell me something? 🤦ðŸ¼"â'€ï¸ I am so tired of bugs! I feel like I am living in the south again.) Anyway, I plan to update this review later and let you know if it actually works for fruit flies or these tiny clothing moths. Overall, I am happy with it. Hoping it will work for the fruit flies too. I will be harvesting the final tomatoes soon, so I should get ample opportunity to test it out further.

UPDATE: I've now been using this for fruit flies and it is working. I have it in the kitchen near the tomatoes, but I also have a cap full of vinegar on the very top. This combo is key. I have also caught a few moths and other small bugs. (2nd photo) Once the fruit flies are gone (will be soon) I plan to move this to the storage room with the moth infestation. Hoping to murder a bunch more bugs! It's not going to catch 100% of anything, but I am happy to have this in my arsenal. Less mess than my little jars with vinegar and Saran wrap, no poison. I'm really pleased that it has worked for various insects. The automatic feature is key in my book.

I ordered this insect trap to replace a different brand I previously had which stopped working after about 2 years. After not having one for a time, we were experiencing a mild infestation of little flies from soil of plants recently brought into the house, and we tend to get a lot of mosquitos in the house most times of year and these work great for those. It is much quieter than the other brand, and also a little bigger. What caused me to write a review, which I rarely do, is an event that occurred this past weekend. My husband was going in and out the front door a lot and left it wide open after one exit. This happened to be when a small swarm of bees looking for nectar was meandering past our house. I stepped into the living room in time to see a couple of bees fly in, but many more outside considering following. I ran over and shut the door immediately. Then before I could do anything one flew over near where this device was and was exploring around the counter. When it got near the device, sure enough, it sucked it right in! One less bee to contend with! My husband walked in just as that happened commenting on all the bees there were when he went outside and I took the opportunity to express my appreciation that he not leave the door open in those circumstances. He caught another one with a cup and fly swatter and released it back outside to find his buddies after the swarm had passed. He came across a 3rd bee later on inside and took care of that one, too, effectively ending our bee infestation. I hope!

My elderly neighbor had a major moth problem. Other insects bother her sporadically, flies and mosquitos, but there were 30 little moths flying around her place at any one time. This thing is great! It really attracts the moths when placed up high, so I put it on top of her refrigerator. We catch the occasional fly and many moths. I empty it out every three days and replace the sticky pad. You must do this outside! When the sticky pad is covered with moth wings, there are often live moths still in the unit and you don't want to set them free again indoors. I was impressed enough to buy myself one of these things to kill mosquitos at my house but can't say that it is very effective for that. The fan is pretty quiet when the unit is on, and I wish it was a little stronger to really mash those suckers down to the sticky pad, but it seems that the effectiveness of the unit is better with larger-winged insects.

Although similar in size to fruit flies, if they fly into your face/nostrils/mouth, they are actually gnats, and a lot harder to deal with, since these little jerks survive a lot more easily than fruit flies. Fruit flies are little drunkards who can be dispatched with a bowl of red wine, but gnats are sober. Gnats are also a lot more aggressive about infiltrating your house just when you open the door, so eliminating every possible source of food debris won't fully get rid of them, and they stick around for days.

The fan on this device is quiet (you only hear it when you're sitting next to it), and even then easy to ignore. It's become a dinner table fixture now that it's fall and all of the bugs are trying to move inside.

After reading other reviews mentioning not very sticky pads, I ordered the fan catcher with some Catchmaster yellow bug sticky pads and cut a pair to fit the circular base.

The fan seems very effective within a 500 square foot area, good for a combined kitchen-dining area. They are obviously attracted to the purple light. I put another Catchmaster pad out in the open below some fruit, which caught nothing.

Although there is an auto mode to only turn on at night, it caught flies during the day just fine, so leave it on 24/7. Drain enzymes are a good choice for clearing out any good waste in the garbage disposal, where they also reside. I wouldn't recommend a bug bomb, especially in the kitchen (gross), since you really need a way to continuously get rid of them to break their life cycle.

Note that drain flies are flat with wider wings and congregate around your drains, and pouring boiling water in your drains a couple times is the way to dispatch those. Gnats do, however, breed in drains, especially kitchen drains. The enzyme sticks that constantly break down food are ongoing solution for that.

I don't think this fan is intended for house flies, which are a lot larger. A house fly is about the size of a fingernail and a gnat is a little bigger than the tip of a ballpoint pen.

If you have a separate kitchen and dining room, you'd want two of them. For an open floor plan kitchen/dining area one is fine.

Lots of plants, lots of gnats in the winter. They work well in catching the gnats but the fan is louder than I expected. You can certainly hear it across the room. The sticky pad that is provided is a bit smaller than the bottom where it goes so it does allow gnats to escape. I had sticky pads that I cut to fit the whole area and it works fine, the company should really fix this.
UPDATE: they are getting returned, although they work as described, the high pitch sound coming from the fan is unbearable to listen to. My other one from another company is completely silent, maybe this is why they were on sale.