I love the idea of a home automation system that means I never have to leave my couch. But I’m not willing to go through all the hassle of knocking down walls and rewiring every room in my house. The folks at Belkin agree, and have come up with the WeMo home automation system that makes bringing your home into the 23rd century dead easy.
In its current form, the system uses a series of motion sensors and power outlet adapters that connect to your home’s wireless network. So as a simple example, you can have your TV automatically turn off when there’s no one in the living room.
But while it’s easy to install, the system offers some very advanced home automation features. Since all the components are tied together through your wireless network, you can selectively turn on lights, or turn off appliances from a smartphone app, from anywhere in the world. The sensors can even be programmed with “if” and “then” parameters, allowing you to specify very specific conditions for when something is turned off or on. They even plan to offer lightbulbs that integrate into your WeMo network, so lights can be controlled without having to completely replace the sockets.
The individual power outlet adapters will sell for $US50 when they’re available in May, with the motion sensor coming in at just $US10 more. And by the time they’re available Belkin hopes to have other WeMo accessories available to flush out the system’s capabilities. [Belkin]
attila
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 3:35 PMIf this works well, this would be one of the best things I have seen come out of this CES so far.
Labrys
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 4:03 PMSweet. I have always been interested in home automation but put it in the “too difficult” basket.
This could seriously revise my position.
Andrew
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 9:25 PMCheck out Z-Wave and the Vera ‘server’. Uses wireless Mesh networks (not Wifi) and is fairly established. Ie they have system for most country (different wireless frequencies and power / light adapters).
Really easy stuff…and available now.
Paul 'AngryNerd'
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 4:18 PMThis is of interest.
Andreas
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 4:38 PM” other WeMo accessories available to flush out the system’s capabilities.”
Flush out? What are the system’s capabilities doing, hiding in the bushes?
I think “flesh out” is the phrase you were looking for there.
Scott
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 5:59 PMIt would be really cool to have a LED light buld replacement with an inbuilt motion sensor that turned off automatically after a set period with no rewiring requied. If you could program it to turn on and off automatically at set times while you were away as well it would be even better.
Daniel
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 6:00 PMisnt that the same as the X10 things?
Andrew
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 9:22 PMX10 is originally over powerline and is pretty old tech. This might be more like Z-Wave.
Captain Ouchie
Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 2:50 PMI really hope they market this in Australia too.
As far as cheap automation goes we only have X10 which is dirt cheap, but pretty shit, unresponsive & often unreliable, and Z-Wave.
Z-Wave is more reliable but there’s literally *one* company that does Z-Wave in Australia and it’s seriously overpriced: $100 for a single lamp unit and their range of units is seriously limited.
This is pretty exciting!
Gazza
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 at 11:01 PMZ-Wave really is established for Home Automation, but one? Surely you haven’t found the guys at DIY Home Automation – http://www.diyhomeautomation.com.au
Regardless, more options such as this is always great… will be interesting to see what happens in a few years. As I’ve got Z-Wave already, I’m definitely hoping they continue with the plans to integrate it into Fridges etc ;)