Top positive review
1 people found this helpful
Review of WeMo SWITCH + WeMo App
By Mr. Luigi on Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2015
Update: 4-5-2-15. Still disappointed that EVERY WeMo product is still mashed into this one huge review section. This update refers to the Belkin WeMo Switch only. A recent firmware update has increased the responsiveness of my 4 WeMo Switches so that all respond promptly to on/off commands. Also, the more aggressive integration of the WeMo Switch with the IFTTT app expands the functionality of the WeMo switch significantly. The app runs smoothly. I see no flaws in this product that would warrant it receiving anything but 5 stars. Again, can not speak for the other WeMo products as do not own any. I just posted the following review on Apple's App Store of the WeMo app and how it interacts with the Belkin WeMo Switch. I'm sure everyone has noticed that Amazon clumps the reviews of ALL the WeMo Products into one giant review section. I am not sure this is best as it is possible that various WeMo products are performing at different levels. For example, I noticed that the WeMo light switch has a fair amount of negative reviews. Maybe that is because it is the most often bought item in the WeMo line. Maybe it is a less admirable product. In my case, I was interested in the WeMo WALL SWITCH. I found it fatiguing to weed through all the reviews finding the ones on that specific product. Anyway...here is my review of the WeMo App in conjunction with the WeMo WALL SWITCH. First, my hardware and software for reference: iPhone 6+ running iOS 8.1.3 (12B466) WeMo Product: 4 WeMo Switches (Kind that plugs into wall outlet) Version of WeMo Switch: VA01 Firmware running on WeMo Switches: WeMo_US_2.00.7166.PVT App Version: 1.10.2 (20022) Here’s the good news: 1. All 4 of my WeMo Switches nicely control the devices to which I have them connected. 3 lights and one TV. 2. I can successfully control all 4 WeMo Switches via my Home Network, via the Enterprise Network at work, and via 3G and 4G. For those reasons the product and app earn 5 Stars. I had to take away 1 star because of the bad news: 1. The app is not refined and often requires several attempts at various tasks in the setup before success is achieved. Luckily I am not a novice user of iOS technology and am comfortable with trial and error. When I set up several of my devices I was told the device was trying to connect to my network. Then it told me it failed and to try again or later. I kept trying and it kept saying it failed. So I stopped trying…only to realize that the Switch WAS connected to my network! The developers need to fix this inaccurate reporting as many folks would give up right there trying to set up the device. 2. I understand the need for firmware updates and am actually glad the company is showing attention to areas of improvement by the presence of firmware updates. My switches needed 2 firmware updates each. Again, that’s fine. My only complaint is after the first firmware update on each of my 4 Switches I received a celebration banner saying something to the effect that 'Your WeMo switch is now running the latest, greatest FW version. Hooray!’ Actually, that was not true at all. There was still one more firmware update and only because I noticed a red dot on the menu bar at the bottom of the app screen did I decide to check if there were more firmware updates. This needs fixing. Each Firmware update takes a while…5 minutes or so. That’s ok. 4. When I experimented and turned on some of my devices from work (Enterprise network) and some of my devices via 4G (parking lot at work) everything went fine. When I got home all the device were on. Great! However, I was unable to turn 3 of the 4 devices off (Home Network). Because of past experience with other buggy apps, I totally closed the WeMo app and reopened it (I didn’t just put it in the background in the recently used app bar). That fixed the problem and I was able to turn off all the devices. Obviously the user shouldn’t need to do this (reboot the app) and some users may not think to do it. This is another area for the developers to refine the app. All in all, I really like this product. I have no qualms recommending it. But novice users would be encouraged to solicit the assistance of an experienced person during setup and remember...my review is with regard to the functionality of the WeMo Wall Switch. Perhaps it applies to the other products. Perhaps not.
Top critical review
58 people found this helpful
So incredibly terrible, and completely unusable.
By Anonymous Coward on Reviewed in the United States on December 5, 2015
I wanted to like this product. I really liked the hub-less idea. But, my user experience over the past 24 hours has been dismal. I'd recommend the old X10 stuff before I'd recommend this. The first thing you need to do is get these moved from their own little network into your home's network. To do this, you need to download their Android (or IOS) app. The number of permissions that are requested by the app are stunning and disturbing. They attempt to justify them, but what really comes out after you look around a bit is that they are completely unfamiliar with Android development. Get comfortable with the innards of your phone, because never before have you had to become so accustomed to your phone's force-stop features. The app doesn't crash, per se, but it spends most of its time in a drugged-out haze trying to remember the state of the world, and the support documents recommend uninstalling, reinstalling, force-stopping, and all kinds of other indications of an app gone seriously, seriously, wrong. But at least at this point, you've got lights turning on and off. But it all gets so much worse once it asks for a firmware update. The devices ship with an ancient firmware, such that it appears to take multiple steps to get them up to the right levels. And each of those levels is a nigh insurmountable task. It starts easy enough: you just click the little upgrade button on the app. That's when the blinking starts. The blinking, oh god, the blinking. First it blinks blue. Then green? Or is that amber? Then it turns off. Then it is blue again. Then it is off. Then it sits and blinks amber for hours. The documentation tells you that this means that it is unable to connect to your network. This is odd, since the on/off buttons still seem to function. Until, they too stop responding. And then they disappear from the network entirely. So you're left with the one thing you've been told to NEVER DO WHEN UPDATING FIRMWARE... you power cycle it. And it comes back up, maybe. Maybe you need to reset it. Maybe not. But you *might* get it to show back up in the app, after force-closing and uninstalling and reinstalling it. But you'll only discover that all those blinking lights were nothing by a lie, for it is still stuck at the original firmware version, the blinking lights now won't stop at all, and you're beginning to think that saving the boxes was a prescient move on your part. After hours of fidgeting with this, I'm left thinking that my time is not worth this, and these devices need to go, not back to the factory, but to some third-world electronics recycling fire, where at least the device's burning corpse will keep a poor family warm for the night. If they're able to sleep through all the blinking, that is. --- Edit: After continued misery with tech support, they were returned today. Just in case it will save you time when you have to call them, here's the script from the support people: 1. What is the brand and model of wireless router? 2. Did you reset the WEMO switches by holding the restore button for 15 seconds without the power and then plug in the WEMO switch and still holding the restore button for another 15 seconds? 3. Have you tried using different handheld devices in running upgrade? 4. How far are the WEMO switches from the router? 5. Have you tried changing the wireless channels of your router and used 1, 3, 6, 9, 11? 6. Did you clear cache or clear data on your Android smart device? 7. Are you able to disable and enable remote access without any errors? 8. Are the WEMO rules created being followed? After answering those questions, these came back: 1. Please change the wireless channel of your router and used 1 or 9. 2. Make sure the 2.4 Ghz SSID wireless name is not the same 5 Ghz SSID 3. Check if the UPNP is enabled on your router. 4. Ensure to disable IGMP, VLAN, VPN are other advanced security on the router. 5. Port forward or port trigger ports on your router: 3475, 3478, 5228, 8080, and 8443. Nevermind that you can only forward one port to one switch... 6. Disable/enable remote access on WEMO app. 7. Disable mobile data and connect to 2.4 Ghz network and run firmware update. I don't even know what this means! 8. Lastly, disable router firewall temporarily to allow firmware update of WEMO to go through.
Sort by:
Filter by:
By -
Verified Amazon Purchase
Vine Customer Review of Free Product
Sorry, no reviews match your current selections.
Try clearing or changing some filters.Show all reviews
Show more reviews