WeMo Setup

When it comes to home automation, there's one big barrier to entry: It's complicated. Even the most basic of smart devices can make a huge impact on someone's day to day life, but if it's too difficult to set up, forget it. It's never going to happen. That's why I'm very pleased to see companies like Belkin start to lean towards simplicity in their product design, especially the WeMo line. WeMo may not be the most powerful home automation tool out there, but when it comes to easy setup, it can't be beat.

The WeMo outlet switch is Belkin's most basic offering. It looks almost like an old timer you would plug into a wall to turn a light on and off at specific times. And in essence, that's exactly what it is, except you trigger the lights with your phone, not tiny plastic clips. To hook it up, you just plug the switch into the wall, and then plug your light you want to control into the switch.






The next, and final step, is to hook the WeMo switch up to your WiFi. To do this, you first install the WeMo app on your phone, and launch it. It walks you through the process of connecting to the switch, linking it to your home network, and setting up any rules you want to use to control the switch.

After that, you're done. The only thing that makes WeMo slightly annoying is that you have to start
the setup process completely over for each switch you set up. That can be quite tedious if you have a lot of switches in your house. Still, it's one of the simplest solutions out there for home automation, even if it's not the most powerful.