In 2013, you’ll turn on all the lights in your home with the tap of your smartphone’s touchscreen. If that sounds like The Jetsons-style technology, you’re not too far off the mark.
Today at CES 2013, Belkin announced an update to it WeMo line of home automation products that includes hard-wired light switches for direct integration into your home's electrical system and spreads WeMo support to Android 4.0 devices.
With the WeMo Light Switch, Belkin is pushing for tighter integration of its internet-connected home-control system. Last year’s WeMo equation was this: plug-in a WeMo adapter to the wall, plug your appliance into the adapter, turn the device on and off with the WeMo app on your iOS device.
The WeMo Light Switch connects directly to a home’s wiring system, just like a regular light switch, so an entire network of lights can be connected to a single WeMo switch, rather than an appliance here or there around the house. Essentially, you can turn on every exterior light around the house as you pull into the driveway, or all the living room lights as you walk through the front door.
Tethered to this news is Belkin’s goal to launch WeMo support for Android 4.0 devices sometime after the WeMo Light Switch becomes available this summer. The WeMo app is already available for any device running iOS 5 or higher.
Belkin will be demonstrating the new power of WeMo at CES this week, and we’ll be there to flip the switch on the next-generation of the service. Stay tuned to see how bright it shines.
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