Belkin WeMo home automation: Beatweek 2012 Best of Show at CES

by Alexx Calise and Dennis Morehouse

Home automation has been around forever, at least in theory. Every year we see demos at trade shows in which you can control your home’s lamps and door locks without having to get up out of your chair, but these products have invariably been overpriced and often overcomplicated. Belkin’s WeMo lineup may finally allow home automation to evolve from something that’s nice in theory to something which goes mainstream.

WeMo is simple, it’s inexpensive, and it’s nicely integrated into an app for iPhone and iPad. The app allows you to control connected devices wirelessly from anywhere you can get a wifi or cellular data signal, meaning you don’t have to be at home on your own local wifi network to make it work. You can open your garage door as you’re turning onto your street, turn on your living room lights while you’re still on the front porch, or make sure you really did lock your front door as you’re sitting fretfully in a restaurant. And perhaps most importantly, you get to control the devices from your phone or tablet without having to carry a separate device.

Learn more at Belkin.com/wemo.