WEMO Application

[Morac]

I'm new to WeMo and set up a WeMo switch using an iPhone. It wasn't a flawless setup as I had to unplug the switch once to get the app to see it, but it worked well enough and the iPhone was set up for remote access. I decided to add my iPad as well, but for some reason it automatically got added to remote access. At this point The iPhone and iPad could see each other in the remote access and could disable each other.

My home router is a dual band router so it has both a 2.4 and 5 Ghz Wifi network. I gave each a different SSID because the 2.4 Ghz has a longer range, but more interference so I like to manually switch to the 5 Ghz one. Doing this confuses remote access in the app and it will no longer see other devices. Things get really weird if you enable remote access on different networks on different devices.

Is remote access tied to the SSID and if so, why?

Edit:

I think I see what's happening. Apparently WeMo only lets devices connected to the same SSID as itself control it directly. As such, even though both Wifi networks have the same router, gateway and netmask (effectively one LAN), if I connect to the 5 Ghz network on my iOS device, all commands are sent as if I'm not home (I.e remote access).

Technically that's not 100% correct as I can register for remote access when my iOS device is connected to the 5 GHz network and that network's SSIDS will register and I can then use local control when connected to the 5 Ghz network, but not the 2.4 one. Basically I can only set up either 2.4 or 5 as local.

That makes no sense since the app should be able to see the WeMo devices on the LAN and control them directly. The SSID shouldn't matter remotely either as once the WeMo device is registered with the iOS device, it should work regardless of the SSID. What it's doing currently doesn't make much sense.

[Morac]

I just figured out what's going on since I was finding that my iPad had a tendency to control the WeMo in "remote" mode when at home. Here's what I've discovered:

1. If remote access is disabled, then I can control my WeMo device locally no matter which SSID I connect to as long the iOS device is on the same LAN.
2. If remote access is enabled, the I can only control my WeMo device locally, if I'm connected to the same SSID I was connected to when I enabled remote access. If I connect to a different local SSID, the app will jump into "away mode" and all requests will be sent through the WeMo cloud servers even though the WeMo device is on the same LAN.

This doesn't make a lot of sense. What should happen is that if the iOS app can see the WeMo device locally, which it obviously can since scenario #1 works, then it should switch to local mode. If it can't see the local WeMo device then it should switch to away mode.

At the very least, add the ability to specify other local SSIDs that if connected to, the app should work in "local mode".

[drchris]

Morac I read your post with great interest because I am in exactly the same boat - and had in fact come to the same conclusion as you did.

Your suggestion for WeMo to recognise that you are within the LAN (irregardless of SSID) makes sense of course. However even if as "away mode" it doesn't really hinder functionality - apart from the fact there is an obvious lag since signal has to go to cloud and back. 

Have you considered having the same SSID for both 2.4 and 5Ghz?

Chris

[PhilH]

One advantage of this non-sensical behaviour is that if you are connected to a different SSID to your WeMos, your motion sensors report the last time they sensed motion. When your mobile is connected to the same SSID it only shows whether there is current motion or not!!

[cdikland]

Very weird but true... Never quite understood that wondeful feature