Review: Belkin WeMo Light Switch

As more and more companies enter the home automation market, Belkin isn't letting its successful WeMo lineup stagnate. In addition to finally adding a new Android app, the company also unveiled an entirely new WeMo product: the Light Switch.

As its name suggests, the Light Switch lets you control any standard (switched) light in your house from anywhere in the world via your smartphone.

Included in the box you'll find the actual switch, which is about double the thickness of a standard light switch, a faceplate, an instruction book, and four wire nuts.

Don't let the installation intimidate you. If you're comfortable with a screwdriver, and confident you know the correct circuit breaker switch to turn off before beginning your handiwork, you'll be fine.

For me, the installation itself took roughly 15 minutes. The most time-consuming part of the process was locating the right circuit to toggle in order to cut power to my bedroom. Keep in mind the larger size of the Light Switch means you many be in for a tight squeeze – especially if you have an excess of wire behind your current switch.

Belkin says the housing box for the Light Switch will need to be at least 2-inches deep. Also, you'll need to make sure your current switch has a neutral wire, and is connected to a one-way connection light. If there's more than one switch controlling the same light, or the neutral wire is missing, the WeMo Light Switch won't be compatible. You can view a video from Belkin showing you the installation process here.

Other than that, the Light Switch conforms to the standard toggle switch size, leaving you the option to use your existing faceplates.

After the installation was complete, the next step was connecting the WeMo to my Wi-Fi network. The process is identical to other WeMo products. You connect your smartphone to a smaller Wi-Fi network created by the Light Switch itself, then provide it with the required credentials to connect to your household Wi-Fi network through the WeMo app. You'll be prompted if there's any available firmware updates, which in turn can take about 10-minutes to complete.

Controlling the Light Switch from the WeMo app on your Android or iOS device is as straightforward as it gets. You're able to turn it on, or off, create rules to automate certain actions and connect it to If This Then That for even more automation controls.

Of course, you can still physically use the switch itself to turn your lights on or off as well.

While the Light Switch follows the standard toggle switch size, it doesn't work in the same way. The entire switch is one button. Pressing it will toggle the current state of your lighting, with a small power indicator to let you know if the switch is on or off. The indicator is a nice touch, especially if you can't actually see the lights, like on a porch setup for instance. If you see the green power indicator, the lights are on. If not, the lights are off. Easy enough. There's also a small LED light just under the power indicator. Its only purpose is to help you find the switch during the night, beckoning you to touch it.

A few days after installing the Light Switch my family and I left on a vacation, leaving our house empty for a week. During that time I set up random rules to turn lights on and off in the house giving the appearance someone was still home. There's no way to know if the lights kept any would be burglars at bay, but the peace of mind was reassuring.

WIRED Belkin finally added push alerts for motion detection to the iOS WeMo app. The Light Switch now brings automation to more than just appliances with plugs.

TIRED Still no way to view timeline of past events. No motion alerts for Android users.