Gadgetory

hi I'm Megan Willerton for CNET and this is the Belkin Wemo light switch this light switch joins belkin's line of home automation products designed to make your life so much easier it connects to your Wi-Fi so it's really easy to hook up and you can then control everything remotely from your smartphone or tablet let's talk a little bit about installation and safety Belkin has a great video on their website that I'll link to in the review below but it'll really take you through everything you need to get this thing installed the one thing that you may not have that could be a problem is the neutral wire it's the white wire and you're gonna have to try a different switch if you don't have that if you've never worked with electrical wiring before this will be a bit of a challenge there are a lot of wires and they're all coloured and you don't really know what's what so you really should work with a friend who's done it before or at least have a voltage tester handy to make sure that you don't electrocute yourself this light switch won't work on a dimmer setting so if you want to change the level of lighting you're gonna have to find something else it also won't work if you have a couple different switches on a single plate so that's another problem that some people have with it and another thing this light switch is only available in white right now but if you want to you can replace the plate with one that you already have so if you have a certain designer one or something you want to do then you can exchange this part this part will remain the same but you can make this a different color also using Lemos app is so easy you just turn it on and off and you can set it just like you set an alarm on your smart phone you can also schedule rules which is really really easy and it's so much better than using those old clunky plug-ins that you have the dial and have to set everything just so this just lets you scroll through you can select a time so if you wanted your porch light to come on at 6:00 p.m. for you to come home it'll be there on waiting for you or if you're going out of town and you really want to set certain lights to come on and off to deter theft or burglaries or whatever then you're good to go another thing we really love about this is that it works with if this than that that's an app that allows you to really customize your experience so I actually had it send me tweets and emails and text messages when I wanted to see that the light was on so the light switch is on boom I get a text it's kind of cool I don't know why I would need to get a text but if you want to it's there this light switch is $49.99 so each switch is about 50 bucks and it's great if you like to do presets but don't want to work with one of those old-fashioned dials otherwise it's kind of a novelty you know it's kind of cool that I can turn my light on and off from anywhere but unless I have a really specific use for it I don't think I don't think I would really need this for cnet.com I'm Megan Willerton and this is the Belkin Wemo light switch