The Belkin WeMo WiFi Power Outlet

I deleted an old recipe that was working differently and started over after you. My first recipe was made before they added the "turn off then on" feature.

I'm using your recipe and thank you every time I turn it on or off (bed time). It works great and has made my Cloud usage more enjoyable... so THANKS again!!!

ok i just read this whole thread and i am going to be picking one of these up. my biggest complaint about the cloud is the 10 - 20 min warmup - soon i wont have to worry about it!

i am curious as to what the actual range is between the motion sensor and its related plug, in other words how far away can they be and still work? is the range like 10ft, or 100? do they need to be plugged into the same building? i ask that because i tried a wifi range extender but it didn't work for me because i was trying to bridge the gap between two buildings and the range extender used the internal house wiring to do its thing.

i realize that these questions aren't totally necessary since its so easy to use your phone to remotely control the plug, however, i would like to have the option to be able to just to activate the plug by using the motion sensor when needed. do you think that there are any plans for an outdoors motion sensor?

one more ? just to make sure i understand everything correctly.
so in the am,
step 1. i remotely turn the plug on via text msg.
step 2, turn on sm's recipe.
step 3, enjoy the cloudy day.
step 4, turn off recipe.
step 5, turn off via text msg.
step 6, go to bed with no worries.

In case anyone is interested The Apple Store now carries the WMo online. I ordered on with my IPad 4.

Ever since I got ahold of my Cloud I have been working on a networked power switch that can work with android. The thing is; that the reason something like this dosen't exist already if that it is hard. Especially the software side of things, because the way Belkin does their WeMo connectivity is to have the WeMo connect to a home WiFi network and use that to contact Belkin's servers. You send all of your control requests to Belkin's servers as well, and they serve as an intermediary.

Since I don't have anything near the resources to run something like that, I have to fall back on another option. Because if I based it off of an IP network, you would only be able to control the cloud while being on the same WiFi network as the Cloud, which kind of defeats the purpose of being able to drive home and open the door to a warm Cloud. However, I'm thinking that the best alternative may be to have it controlled by text message. I originally thought that would be prohibitively expensive to do this but then I looked into things a bit.

Here in Canada our carriers are notorious for gouging and bad prices. But in fact; you can get text only plans here for 10 dollars a month for 2500 SMS's, or 50 cents to pay by the day for 100 messages. You would need to be using the switch a lot to reach those limits. The issue however; is that the hardware required to add SMS capabilities to a microcontroller is quite expensive, at around 100 dollars. I'm not sure that at that kind of price it's worth it. The rest of the hardware isn't that bad though.

Interesting thoughts
My plan is unlimited everything

That's good, but the thing is that you would need to get a plan for the Cloud as well (man; that feels weird to say). That's where the cheap, pay as you go plans come in.

I'm also thinking that it might be more feasible than I thought to write a piece of software which lets you run a server on your home computer that will work with the Arduino microcontroller that I want to use. Problem is you would either need to run a cable from your router directly to the device or I would need to add WiFi to the mix. Which is also a problem, since after the patent trolls take their cut the cost of a wifi module is pretty damn expensive (85).

Decisions, decisions... what to do...

Just buy an iPhone.

I refuse to step over to the darkside! You will never get me!

Future shop has them on the shelves too.

After a few unsuccessful tries at connecting my wemo I the place I needed it, I realized that for the initial setup I was beyond its range capabilities. Apparently the switch only really has a range of about 30ft between walls and obstacles. So I placed the wemo beside my router for the initial setup and I got it working, then I moved it to where I wanted it and it worked in that spot.

In case anyone was wondering the max distance between the motion sensor and its wemo plug is only about 10ft.

I can't believe how much I love this setup already and I have only had it for one day! Thanks again for the recipe sm!

I picked up a couple extra WeMo's from CostCo. I just could not pass up the deal. I might use them for other things around the house. I had a power outage today and when the lights came back on I turned on the Cloud manually. I did not bother to check the connection to the internet. A couple hours later I went back in the room and the device was cold. I think I should have reset the connection or something in order to connect the WeMo back up to IFTTT.com Keep this in mind if you have a power outage.

I have to re-connect mine every few weeks. I don't think it's a power issue, but rather an issue with my internet connection (or lack therof). I think it has something to do with the MAC addresses.

As a huge fan of the VXC, this thread has fixed my biggest issue with the device! Thanks a ton SLiM for testing this out for us, couldn't be happier with the WeMo and that recipe works like a charm. I am currently trying to break my habit of manually resetting the VXC to keep it ready throughout the day and I'm glad to have this awesome device to do the work for me.

I agree! The only thing that happens to me (surprisingly often, actually) is that I seem to always want to take a rip from my Cloud right during the 5-minute or so window between :56 past the hour, and :02 past the hour. This is the time window that my Cloud is always in "X-mas mode" (red/green/red/green), so I have to manually reset it and wait a short while before taking my rip.

I was wondering if a second recipe could run simultaneously to reset the Cloud at :30 past the hour?

That would eliminate the X-mas mode window altogether.

It's funny that you mentioned that because I just had to do the same! Hopefully in the future IFTTT allows for more recipe customization. It seems the only drawback presently is the 15 minute increments for actions.

I just figured out that you can do this. It was easy peasy. Just click on SliM's recipie, change the 00 to 30 and save it as a new recipe. They are both running simultaneously now and the Cloud gets reset every 30 minutes. No more X-mas mode window.

My wemo is not playing nice with ifttt.com today. Both of my recipies have been totally hit or miss today and I don't understand why. Sometimes only half the recipe runs (so the Cloud turns off, but not back on) and other times is doesn't work. Still other times it will run itself on the quarter hour for some reason.

Any ideas?

I'm having the same issues Stu. I also just updated the firmware so I wonder if that has anything to do with it. It didn't start acting flaky until after the FW update.

Come to think of it I just updated the firmware, too. Glad to know it's not just me...... I guess.

Everything seems back to normal. My recipes have been working without any issues today.

Recently updated my FW and I am now having issues with IFTTT and the WeMo. I can remotely control the switch from my iPad but IFTTT refuses to make a connection with the WeMo switch. The message I receive is "Unable to activate Wemo Home Control Switch. Please try again." I have tried restoring my WeMo to factory default settings and still I get this message when attempting to activate my device through the WeMo Channel on IFTTT.

Also worth mentioning I was receiving numerous General Action Errors over the past few days without reason. Seeing as how the WeMo app is working perfectly I think their must be something wrong with IFTTT's servers.

Yeah, I agree BossBrew. I'm still having all kinds of strange problems with my recipies running. Unfortunately, I'm also having some home wi-fi issues, so I'm not sure how much that is contributing to the errors (if any).

I've been following IFTTT on Twitter and it looks like we aren't the only ones having issues with recipes. The advice given to me by IFTTT is to reset the WeMo to factory default settings. I have done this 3 times both through the WeMo application and manually to no avail.

I'd much prefer to use a recipe than create custom rules through the WeMo app because my schedule is subject to change and I'd hate to have my VapeXhale heating up when I'm not even around due default rules.

Hopefully IFTTT sorts out the issues soon. If I am doing something wrong hopefully I can find a solution, my WeMo works perfectly through the Belkin app so I'm chalking this up to an IFTTT issue.

Good info, BB. Keep us posted if possible. I'm done using recipes on IFTTT until there's a fix.

The IFTTT has been working with Belkin on the issue with the WeMo and it seems the issues have been fixed! My WeMo switch channel has been activated for the last 5 hours and my recipes have been triggering without issue (and quicker than before). A few days ago I couldn't get my recipes to trigger twice in a row without getting a General Action Error and now they have been triggered five times on schedule.

There still might be some kinks to work out but it's good to know that the IFTTT team is currently collaborating with Belkin and fixing bugs as they are reported.

I'd say its worth giving your recipes another shot!