There are numerous products in the marketplace that we can control with our smartphones. After all, our phones have the power of a personal computer combined with the mobility to go anywhere we go. So being able to control more devices around our home from the palm of our hand seems like an inevitability. In a time where there is smart “everything” available to us we can often experience product envy: who wouldn’t want to turn up the heat on their crockpot while riding the bus home from work?

Fortunately there is an alternative to replacing all of your existing devices with smart ones. You can just add “smarts” to existing devices without replacing them with some of the innovative new products from WeMo. For example, you can plug your existing devices into WeMo smart plugs instantly adding some smart home functionality to lamps, small appliances and more. With a little DIY initiative you can add even more advanced capabilities using the WeMo Maker Smart Home Controller.

Making the Complex Simple

The Belkin WeMo Maker Smart Home Controller allows you to connect low-voltage electronics to your smartphone over a standard Wi-Fi network. Once that is accomplished, you can then turn the device on and off remotely, connect it to other sensors, put it on a schedule and so much more.

A perfect example is a garage door opener. The one I have is over a decade old and it is far from smart. You push a button and the door closes or opens. Sometimes however, a stray leaf or dust particle can cause the safety sensor to kick the door back up, sometimes after I have driven away from the house in a hurry. On more than one occasion I have come back home to the horror of realizing the garage door had been open for hours. Wouldn’t it be nice if I didn’t have to worry about the door being left open by mistake? By connecting the WeMo Maker to the regular hookup of the garage door opener you can now open and close the door with your smartphone. By investing in inexpensive magnetic sensors and connecting them to the WeMo you can also have it check to see if the door is open. Program a rule to send a push notification to your phone if the door is open for more than five minutes and your peace of mind goes up tremendously. The best part? You don’t have to return home to close the door, you simply push a button on the app and confirm the door went down by checking the sensor status.

A Blinding Revelation

Another example of how the WeMo Maker can be used beyond just a simple on/off switch is with window blinds. Blinds that are capable of being opened and closed electronically will usually have a remote to do so, but what if you add a feature to automatically close the blinds at night and have them open at the crack of dawn? Set them on a timer to do so and if you really want to get fancy you could even connect them to a daylight sensor that automatically adjusts with the seasons. The surprising part of all of this? It’s much easier than you might think and yet gives you the satisfaction of being a real do-it-your-selfer. The only limit is your imagination!

Check out the selection of Smart Home products now available at Best Buy

Syd Bolton
Syd Bolton has over 30 years of experience with computers and runs Canada's only interactive computer museum, The Personal Computer Museum (http://www.pcmuseum.ca) in Brantford, Ontario. Syd lives and breathes technology of all kinds and is always trying something new. He is also Canada's top videogame collector. Find out more at http://www.sydbolton.com.

2 COMMENTS


  1. sydbolton wrote:

     

    A perfect example is a garage door opener.

     

    Sometimes however, a stray leaf or dust particle can cause the safety sensor to kick the door back up, sometimes after I have driven away from the house in a hurry. On more than one occasion I have come back home to the horror of realizing the garage door had been open for hours. Wouldn’t it be nice if I didn’t have to worry about the door being left open by mistake? 



    Seriously consider getting a Nest or DLink IP camera.  You get alerts if someone unwanted comes into the garage.  You can also confirm whether the door was left open… instead of wondering.

     

    Love my Wemo outlet….

    • ability to power my lights on and off remotely
    • can set the lights to turn on or off based on sunset in my area
    • with away mode…. the wemo outlet can turn lights on and off randomly like someone is at home
    • if you have rodents, you can turn on and off the rodent ultrasonic defenses remotely too!
  2. Yup, that’s me to a tee… always wondeing if I left the door unlocked or the garage door unopened. 

    I was the person in mind when these products were created. Smiley Happy

Comments are closed.