I have been a big fan of all three of these devices for a long time. Yes, Wemo Switch was a little rough in the beginning where it lost connection to the internet and had to be manually reset. The Nest Thermostat also had some early issues. But as of early 2016, all of this has been fixed by the manufacturers with many firmware or generational upgrades and I trust it to operate as advertised when I am away from home.
Since this is a web site about home security cameras, I suspect you might be reading this because of your familiarity with Nest Cam so I’ll describe what Wemo is all about. Wemo is a line of products made by a company called Belkin that automates light switches. It comes as a receptacle that plugs into your power socket. You plug in a lamp or a small appliance. You can control on and off using time of day, events like sunset and also manually turn it on or off remotely from anywhere in the world using your smartphone. Wemo also has begun to integrate into small appliances like crock pots.
Anyway I have a small army of Wemo switches, plus a brigade of Nest devices. I have been waiting for Nest to speak with Wemo Switch and they finally announced this capability.
So what can you do with this sort of integration? Nest Thermostat has a home and away feature that can integrate with a Wemo Switch. I plan to turn on my ceiling fan when home. Right now, it’s always on during the hotter months, regardless of me being there or not. I just want it on when I’m home. Once these devices are integrated, I can save some money on electricity.
I’ll also use the Nest Thermostat home and away features to control some of the lights in my house using a Wemo Switch. When I’m home at a certain hour, I’ll put on some additional lights automatically.
I can also integrate the Nest Thermostat home and away functionality with my Nest Cam. I can turn the cameras on and off using the capability of the Nest Thermostat. Yes, I can also do that with the Nest Cam app settings – but what if it’s just me going out and not my wife? She gets mighty annoyed at me when I use the home and away function on the phone and she’s not with me. Using the home and away setting on the Nest Thermostat integrated with the Wemo capabilities just described results in a fully automated solution. One that won’t annoy my wife.
So, my plan is to not only have all my Nest Cams active when we aren’t there. But in addition, certain lights will come on when I get home, others when I am away.
The photo that accompanies this article is the integration confirmation screen from the Wemo app that was made available on May 16, 2016. You can get to it via settings by clicking on “more” at the lower right of the main Wemo screen. You will now see a “Connect to Nest” selection. It will require that you sign into your Nest account and allow authorization of Wemo to access the Nest Thermostat settings. Once you do that, you can also control the temperature of your house through the Wemo app.
Ideally, I would like to see a tighter integration between Nest Cam and a Wemo Switch but this is a good beginning. It would be nice if my Nest Cam sees motion then puts on all the lights in the house that are connected to a Wemo Switch. Hopefully, that’s on the drawing board at the two companies.