Wemo - Wireless Dimmer Switch - White

If you are one of those folks who are big into the smart home thing and are wondering where the smart dimmer switches are, stop wondering. WeMo just rolled out their version. And if you can get through the somewhat rocky installation, it mostly works. And does a few cool tricks. I say mostly works because Amazon’s Echo, which is supposed to work with the dimmer ,only works some of the time. Even after going through the somewhat lengthy and arcane process of linking it with the WeMo switch, it is just as likely to say “Sorry, light is not responding,” as carry out my command with a cheerful “OK” when I tell it to turn the dimmer on or off. Also be aware this is a light switch, not something you just plug and play. You need more than a passing familiarity with electrical wiring to install this thing. Just putting white to white and black to black isn’t going to hack it here. You need to know which of the two black wires that went to your old dimmer is LINE and which one is LOAD. And be sure there is a neutral wire because it wont work without one. . As well as being sure this is replacing a 1-way, not a 3- way switch (you can’t use the dimmer on 3-way circuits). If you understand all that, you are good to go. Installation is not hard. WeMo’s current crop of install videos are of little help here. There were not any yet for the dimmer when I did my install. And if you follow the instructions for the regular light switch, you could get into trouble. It does not matter which black wire goes where in that installation. The good news is the WeMo dimmer works with all types of lighting (regular old light bulbs, LED or CFL) as long as they are dimmable. You can even tune it to the proper type for best results during installation. A color changing LED light bar on the switch (that is off most of the time) helps you determine what the problem is, if there are problems. Problems and modes are color coded. See the instructions. Also be aware you HAVE to install the WeMo app on your smartphone or tablet to set up the dimmer and get it to do all those neat connected tricks. That was not an altogether smooth process for me. The Android app crashed a couple of times and/or just stopped working as I went the process of connecting it to my wi-fi system and doing the setup. Killing the app and starting over fixed the problem each time. And I eventually got it up and running. This product is new so maybe they will work out the bugs in time. Once installed the WeMo dimmer does several useful things. You can set it to come on at any time and any brightness and go off – every day or just some days. You can turn on a “night mode” that limits the brightness (your choice) if you turn it on in the middle of the night. Thereby avoiding the dreaded 1000 watt spotlight syndrome that comes from a going from complete darkness to full brightness when you throw the light switch. You can set it to go on and off at different times when you are away. And there is a timer that allows you to turn it on and then go off in the elapsed time you choose.. Of course, since it is connected via wi-fi. you can control it from anywhere with your smartphone or tablet. Or you can use it like a dumb dimmer switch. Slide your finger along the little row of tiny lights in the center of the switch to set the brightness when you turn it on. One other caveat. This looks best in a single switchbox. The plastic tabs that attach to the wall are thicker than the flat metal tabs on a standard switch. So if you are installing it next to other older switches in in a two- or three-gang switchbox the standard switch faceplate does not sit flush with the wall over the dimmer. This is less of an issue if you install it alone, since it comes with its own faceplate, which fits better.

Wall installation was easy and straightforward if you have basic electrical knowledge. It is important to know this dimmer can only be used on a single pole light switch (one switch controls one set of lights). Installation is as follows: 1. Turn off breaker to light switch. 2. Take off face plate and unscrew old switch. 3. Test for any other live wires within box using voltage detector to prevent electrocution. 4. Remove wires from old switch. 5. Attach green wire to bare copper wire (ground). 6. Attach white wire to white wire (neutral). 7. Attach the black wire with the lighting bolt icon to black wire for power source. 8. Attach the other black wire with light bulb to black wire to light source (load). 9. Carefully push all wires back in place, replace screws and turn breaker back on. Note: Wires in your home may be different colors or even wired incorrectly. If in doubt, hire a professional. After testing to make sure the light turns on manually, download the WEMO app. I had a glitch occur during initial setup and was very frustrated with the setup process. In order to prevent others from being equally frustrated, I would perform the following before connecting your phone to the dimmer, via a temporary Wi-Fi signal, and opening the app on your phone. 1. Forget all your WiFi networks on your phone. (Note: Dimmer uses 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi) 2. Turn off smart connect (feature which phone auto connects to cellular data when no internet is detected). 3. Unplug/turn off any router extenders. (setup app does not show “_ext” and I think I selected the router extender which may have caused the glitch) 4. Disable cellular connection. 5. Disable Bluetooth. The glitch during setup caused no devices to show up within the app. I followed the directions within the WEMO app to “Reset Your Dimmer’s Wi-Fi” and “Factory Restore Your Dimmer,” and neither reset fixed the problem. After speaking with a service representative, it occurred to me that you must also clear the WEMO app’s “Cache” and “Data” in the apps setting. Even though I should have known this, I think the company should include that in the reset directions. After a successful app install, I found the app easy to use and very responsive to commands on Wi-Fi. I did notice a couple second delay when I used the cellular connection, but that was to be expected. The app has many features to customize the lights, such as an adjustable timer to fade out to sleep, a night mode, a programmable “Rule” control, and a manual dimmer and off button. You can even do more customizations by connecting to IFTTT and Nest. I would not recommend this product since the WEMO uses Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth for setup and so many steps need to be completed to be successful. Another option WEMO could have used was the WPS on the router to establish the connection. I did select to save the Wi-Fi settings, so maybe I would not have to go through this again for additional devices.

Opening defense: this is my first IOT install. I thought adding a Web-enabled dimmer would be cool. The install was super easy (if you have very basic DYI skills and can imagine yourself replacing a light switch and what that entails: turning off the breaker/fuse, basic wiring, etc.) Instructions for install were clear and very well done. They even included color-coded labels for each wire so you couldn’t get it wrong after removing the old switch/dimmer.) The enclosed documentation is just about right: early warnings for the less-skilled/qualified, step-by-steps how-to directions for basic DIY, good illustrations, and troubleshooting tips. What’s missing? See my last paragraph. Feature set is nice: You can control the lights on the dimmer “from the bed, the boardroom, or Barbados” — cute marketing copy! — but basically from anywhere. You can set lights to a schedule, set an auto-off time limit, and — my favorite — set the lights to a default brightness based on time of day. Great for late-night bathroom lights! Also, setup lets you calibrate your lights for dimming without glitches. You can choose from LED, compact fluorescent, or incandescent. Then you can set the dimming range so there is no buzz or flicker. Works great! As mentioned at the beginning, this is my first such install and it went very well. Without realizing it, I found out that this is partly because this is one of the few devices of it’s kind for home use that doesn't require you to have a “hub” in order to use it; it’s completely stand-alone. Now for the less-than-great parts: after install, I downloaded the app (easy) and calibrated my lights (also easy). To finish, the app asked for my email (“In case of recalls" — yeah, ok…) I entered my email and got the “Congratulations. Your setup was successful!” message. I closed the app, attached the faceplate and wanted to try out some of the many promised features. I went back to the app only to have it ask me to start the calibration again (ok, I did that again) and then for my email again. I figured I must have missed something, so I closed the app and tried to find out what I missed by checking the enclosed documentation. Nothing there… So I launched the app and went through the calibration AND email again. This time after getting the “congratulations” prompt, I was able to access the rest of the app’s features. In fairness, I may have done something the first time that prevented me from getting to this same point, I’m not sure. But I DID get the “successful setup” message, so I found the process confusing. Closing thoughts: a great dimmer with many nice Web-enabled features. My biggest complaint: first use as a basic light switch. This should be a no-brainer: how to turn on a light or how to change the light level. Sadly, all the bells and whistles hardly matter if you can’t use it as simple dimmer. Ok, in fairness, it doesn’t take long to figure it out, but my complaint is that you SHOULDN’T HAVE TO FIGURE IT OUT! It’s a light switch — it should just work! This should have been addressed up front by the design and testing team. Let me explain: the on/off is a push movement done at the bottom part of the panel. There’s a glowing circle there that might invite you to push there, but me and three other people I asked didn’t guess that first. Then there’s a cool capacitance dimmer slide that lights up a row of tiny LEDs as you slide your finger up or down. If you’ve already figured out how to turn on the light, then the dimming function actually dims or brightens the lights. If the switch is off, then the dimmer function acts as a pre-set to where the lights will come on when you subsequently push the power on at the bottom of the switch. NOWHERE in the documentation does this get explained. As a result, it was trial and error to figure out how to turn it on and dim it. Not rocket science for sure, but I maintain that basic user testing would have pointed this out at a very early stage. As much as the Web-enabled features are great, the basic function is something that you’ll use everyday; it should just work!

Alright folks we are officially living in the future. Although I never thought that a light switch would be the thing that made me feel that way. But this isn't just any light switch. It's the Belkin WeMo Dimmer Wi-Fi Light Switch, and it has surpassed all of my expectations. There is not much to the package. Just a small box with a very fancy looking light switch, some caps to twist your wiring together, and the instructions you need to get started. To be clear I had no experience with changing out a light switch before this. In the end the included instructions, and a helpful Youtube video were enough to get me going. The process was really quite easy. My only piece of advice here would be to make sure you turn off the correct fuse in your home's breaker box to avoid injury. If you are not comfortable with this just ask a friend who is familiar with it or call an electrician. Once the device was physically installed the rest of the setup was even easier. After downloading the WeMo app on my phone it walked me through the rest of the steps. Through the app you can obviously turn the lights on and off, and adjust the level of dimming. You can also create profiles to automatically turn the lights on or off at a certain time, to set a specific level of brightness for movie time, or any other scenario you can come up with. And you can control all of this wherever you have internet access. If you forgot to turn off the lights before you left the house? No problem. If you want to make it look like someone is home while you are actually on vacation? It's got you covered. Combine the Belkin WeMo Dimmer Wi-Fi Light Switch with Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, and you can live out your dreams of being on the Starship Enterprise. And just like that we are in the future. It looks great, and works better than expected. I had only planned on getting this one switch, but after trying it out I am ready to outfit the entire house. Give it a try, and I am confident you will too. Highly Recommended. Thanks Belkin!

The switch installation was fairly simple. All in all, it took about 15 minutes to install the physical switch. If I were to rate the switch on its own I would give it 5 stars. However, without the software, it is nothing more than an expensive light switch. The WEMO app is very buggy, on many occasions required a force close of the app and start over. One lockup occurred during the initial switch setup, which resulted in not being able to establish a connection to the switch. I performed a factory reset on the switch and started the installation process again. Thankfully the app did not lock up during the second attempt and the installation was successful. Once the app established a connection to the switch, it seemed very responsive, that is until the app locks up. According to WEMO, "IFTTT and WEMO are friends". Unfortunately, their friendship is on the rocks right now, because they are not on speaking terms. I attempted about 20 times to get the switch to connect to IFTTT with no success. Hopefully, there will be an update soon that enables this functionality, as this was one of the main reasons I chose this device. The app again locks up almost every time I try to connect the two services wich always results in a force close. The WEMO app thankfully has some limited automation settings, however, its functionality of this switch is severely hindered by not connecting to IFTTT. This switch does not recognize mesh networks, thus will only connect to a single point on the mesh network. It is also not supported by Google Wifis On.here connected device sharing service. Since Belkin does not specify compatibility, these are not deal breakers, but it is something to take note of if you plan on utilizing this service. Overall I am fairly disappointed with the functionality of this switch. It has dimming capabilities and an overall excellent build quality, it features standalone automation functions; which are all bonuses. But unfortunately, the buggy software overshadows all of the good things about this device, and for that reason, I cannot recommend this product. Positive (+) ~Easy Install ~Remote Access ~Dimming function ~Night Mode ~Automation Functions (Limited) Negative(-) ~Software locks up requiring force close ~Does not recognize mesh networks ~Unable to connect to IFTTT ~Changing Wifi network requires factory reset of the switch

I've used regular Wemo replacement light switches in my home for about two years now and found them to be useful and generally reliable and attractive products. This new device with touch activated dimmer control takes the quality of these devices to a new level with higher quality plastics, attractive LED indicator lights, and new software features. Installing and setting up any Wemo light switch is relatively straightforward. Simply remove the existing light switch and connect the Wemo device in its place. Unlike a regular switch, Wemo devices require a common wire, but in my experience there has always been one tied off in the switch box. Before buying your first switch it may be worth taking the wall plate off to make sure that a common wire is present. If not, you may need an electrician. Once connected, the device boots up with its own Wifi SSID. Activating the switch with the app is as simple as connecting to this network on a mobile device and then running the app. The app will communicate with the switch and download your regular home Wifi SSID information. After an automatic reboot of the switch, it will connect to your home Wifi and work with the app. I've installed 9 of these now and never had an issue. The new switch hardware includes a back lit on/off switch and a touch sensitive dimmer that you activate by sliding a finger up or down the slightly recessed control. Tiny LEDs light up to show the actual dimmer setting chosen. I tested the switch with a set of 6 LED floodlights and it dimmed them perfectly. Keep in mind that the switch can only handle a 150 Watt total load, but if you're using LEDs this should not be a problem (note: this is the actual power load, not the "equivalent" rating some quote to show how bright a bulb is vs. a traditional incandescent bulb). The app provides the options for rules to automatically dim the lights during user-definable night time hours and to fade gradually on a timer - a nice option for fading out bedroom lights. You can also configure actions to be taken if you hold the switch for > 2 sec (typically turning several lights on/off at once). Finally, the software will allow you to connect with Internet of Things service IFTTT, so you can either trigger the light from other devices, or use the switch to trigger IFTTT events. I also tested the integration of the light with Amazon Echo / Alexa voice commands. Curiously, you need to enable the Wemo skill to use this new switch even though my older Wemo units didn't require it. That said, once you enable the skill the switch works just fine and can be dimmed or added to groups just like any other smart switch. The one negative with Wemo is that the app is slow to start up and bring up the list of devices. Fortunately, Google Assistant will also control your Wemo lights without any wait. I've always liked the Wemo system and this new switch improves the system even further. As long as you're not intimidated by some relatively straightforward installation and connection of existing wiring, the system is easy to set up and enjoyable to use.

If you've ever installed a light switch, this isn't any different. My installation was in a three switch box, so after switching off the breaker the hardest part was pulling out the other two switches to gain access to the neutral wire bundle I needed to connect to. Once that was complete, the other wires were connected and all switches put back in place, then off to switch on the breaker. One thing I noticed when reinstalling the switch plate/cover is this switch does stick out further from the cover compared to our other switches. Just an aesthetics thing. With power applied it took a couple of minutes for the switch to appear in the WeMo app and then I was able to access the Connect to Nest option in Settings to link the WeMo app to my Nest thermostat which I'm now able to control through the WeMo app as well, although apparently you can't access WeMo devices through the Nest app. The Nest app only shows when WeMo was last used (mine doesn't show anything so not sure it works) and allows you to remove the Nest/WeMo connection. Over the course of the next few days we used the app to control the light at various times of the day. One of the things I noticed was there can be a several second delay between the time you turn the light on/off or change the brightness and it actually happening. I've also had several times where the app/switch appeared to be locked up/frozen, but after a short delay allowed me to control the light. There were also a couple times the first day where the device (dimmer) wasn't available and the app asked me if I wanted to hide it, but that appears to have cleared up. Overall it was an easy install and setup if you've ever installed a light switch. The lag between command and action may annoy some and the switch itself sticks out further from the face of the switch plate compared to our other switches.

The Belkin WeMo dimmer light switch is a product that is just adequate. It functions reliably, but does nothing else to exceed expectations. There are just enough nuisances that I cannot justify giving it higher than three stars out of five. To begin, let's talk about the pros, because there are some: PROS - To my surprise, it was actually quite easy to set up. I like the idea of the screwless faceplate, and the instructions were very straight forward. Connecting the switch to the network took a few tries, but they were to the point when it failed - this saves a lot of wait time. The switch itself was also able to work with LED lights, including ones which I had problems with dimming in the past. Overall, very good experience on that end. The switch itself was way more configurable via the app, which includes things such as a timer, night mode for dimmer lights at night, sleep timer, and even the option to simulate someone being home. All of these features are easily configurable through the app. CONS - There are two things that truly annoy me with this light switch. First, is the switch itself. I cannot understand why I am able to adjust the brightness levels when the lights are off. The amount of times I have accidentally adjusted my preferred brightness because I was looking for the switch in the dark, or accidentally touched the lowest setting, is too high. I really wish they would change this in the future because it is completely frustrating having to fidget with the dimmer until it's correct again. My second complaint, is the app itself. The version I'm using is on Android, and it is very unresponsive. Usually, in most apps, there is feedback to let the user know that you've pressed the buttons and they are working. Here, however, because pressing anything takes at least a second to respond, it has become a waiting game to see if the app has died or it's running slowly. Using the app to turn on my lights takes more than a second. I can adjust temperatures on my WiFi thermostat faster than I can turn on my lights. You can also guess that dimming lights with the app is pain. Want to see if your brightness level is correct? Well, you better wait a second between each adjustment before anything happens. I don't see why it has to take this long, because I can dim the lights instantaneously with the switch. My only assumption is that the light rely on Belkin servers to do its thing before the actions are applied on the switch. If that's the case, then that's highly inefficient. If I'm at home, then the lights should turn on, and then send information to the server. In the end, it is an advanced piece of technology that really should have gone through some more quality assurance before releasing to the public. If you must have a WiFi controlled dimmable light switch, then yes, it is a decent product. However, I would hold off until a new firmware is released, or version 2.0.