WEMO Ideas

[#1]

It would be a great enhancment to allow grouping on the WeMo app.  I have several WeMo devices (24) and to find the one I want to switch is difficult.  But, if I knew it were in a group, say "garage", then I could open that group on the app and turn on or off the switch.

[#2]

Get an amazon echo plus. Nothing better than creating a group and telling the house to turn on and off light groups.

[#3]

Agreed. Grouping bulbs is great but would be cool to be able to group multiple devices.

[#4]

Ditch the Wemo link and have that device removed from the wemo cloud. Echo plus will do the grouping and scenes. Wemo link on my end lagged my wemo app on android and ios to a point where I was looking at Lutron. Since the exclusion of the bridge... all is good. You can also group bulbs and switches in the Alexa app. Set routines, schedules, key phrases. I have at least 8 cree bulbs, 12 hue bulbs, 4 osram lightify rgb strips, 11 wemo light switches, 7 wemo plug switches and 2 wemo bulbs living together with sub 1 second reaction times from command input with various groupings.. I have each room grouped as well as the exterior. Grouped by floor level. Grouped by activity like coming home or going away. Works great.

[#5]

I fully understand about grouping the WeMo items in the Amazon echo.  But, lets say I'm in the garage and I want to walk out to the backyard via my sidewalk.  I want to turn on the walkway lights, but low and behold, I do not have an Amazon echo in the garage, so now I must walk through the house and tell the echo to do this.  It would be more efficient if the WEMO app had grouping, so I could just click on the walkway light group and switch on the lights I want.

[#6]

OK. So we had the same issue.. Yes I have a garage as well. The echo dot in the garage is a solution for that problem. Also allows for the intecom feature to come into play on the amazon devices so that you can get assistance when needed in said garage. Upgrade that to dot to a plus and you can start to voice control the garage and extend the zigbee or zwave network. As long as the echo devices can see the internet then they can control all of the devices associated with the alexa account. I use the wemo devices as one type of automation devices. Wemo is a great product as a relay device to switch power but it is not for every situation. I was looking for the swiss army knife of devices to take care of zigbee, wifi and zwave with the voice control. The wemo app cannot take care of all the different devices out there but the echo plus can. The only issue is having to pull out your phone to turn on the lights when between the house and the garage. I am thinking a zigbee motion sensor on the house in the future or a zone aware camera with a trigger.

Wemo allows for other things like using the away feature from the Nest Thermostat geofence allows for the Nest to tell the Wemo to turn off the lights and the Rheem Econet to turn off the electric water heater. The echo simply ties it all together in a user friendly way that allows everyone in the home to use the system with or without a personal device. What started this for us is a 5, 56, and 89 year old that visits that needs to turn the lights on but has no personal device or cannot figure out how to use a device.

Btw.. echo dot is dirt cheap for the feature set it allows. When I have to put my kid down for the night I say Alexa sleep time and all upstairs lights turn off as well as exterior lights. The LED Osram strip on his tv turns on to 25% in a yellow red hue as a night light. My basement lights turn on and the thermostat switches to a slightly lower temp. 1 command does this, in all that is over 30 devices with a state change and no device physically touched. We have many routeens for different daily activities. Clicking a group at this point has been phased out with the exception of setting the group up.

[#7]

Once again, thank you for the Amazon echo and dot ideas.  I have those.  So, here is why I want the grouping on the app.  As stated, I am NOT ALWAYS near my echo or dot.  In fact, last week I was in the process of driving my car around the back of my house.  I had a load of dirt to deliver and had no lighting.  So, I reached for my phone and had to FIND all the wemo switches for the backyard (4 of them) to turn them all on.  If I had a "backyard" group on the app and just switched it on, then problem solved.  Seems everyone's solution to this problem is to use an echo dot.  I rather have it on the app as a group.  Also, many of my swtiches are for the backyard, 3 acres and the dots are not weather proof!