Casa de Szerlip: Belkin WeMo LED Lighting Starter Kit

OK Joel have you really run out of things to talk about? You're really going to have a post dedicated to light bulbs? My answer to anyone asking those questions is absolutely. In the pursuit of a smarter home one of the most popular ways to start is with something everyone has and needs lightbulbs. There are two companies hitting the "smart lighting" scene Phillips and Belkin. After doing a lot of research there seemed to be very little difference between the bulbs themselves, the difference came down to their iOS apps and expandability. For me Belkin seemed like the frontrunner there so for Christmas this past year I was lucky enough to get the Belkin WeMo LED Lighting Starter Kit.

The kit itself is very basic. It comes with two LED lightbulbs and a network hub that plugs into a nearby outlet. Once you've plugged everything in there is an app for iOS and Android that walks you through setting it up. Setup took me like 30 seconds. I have one lightbulb in our bedroom and one in our living room. Once setup I can now control the two lights from my phone. I can put them on a schedule of when to turn on and off. I can change their brightness. Or if I want to get really fancy I can begin to expand my Wemo/Smart Home and tell the lights that when you detect my or Jenn phones in a certain radius turn on the lights.

I understand that hitting a switch or setting up a AC Timer are all old technologies that work just fine. Where this starts to become great is when you don't have to think about it. When you get home at 5PM and the lights are already on. Or when you're watching TV and don't want to get up to turn off the light and can just dim the light with your phone. I do plan as lightbulbs burn out to continue to replace them with the Belkin lights and continue to expand our home (whereever that may be) to a smarter home.