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Smart Switches and fun adventures in bioscience.

So where to begin with all this, fell a little off track on my planning to get out some posts more regularly, but you know what they say, sometimes it's what you get out.

Carrying on, In what has been added lately to my ever growing smart home (that's wired from the 1900's (see wikipedia knob and tube wiring if you want to know  what i mean) I added a Wemo smart light switch to my room.  There were a few complications, mainly that it is setup for newer wiring schemes that are to modern code (aka 4 wire and a neutral as aposed to my 2 wire and a neutral >.>) But that being said and that I am a resourceful balloonicorn, I managed to find some posts ( note to add referene links) and managed to get it working. ie power incoming (black) to source of power, white to second black from the switch (aka power incoming and outgoing from light, then the green and white from the switch go under the grounding screw with the neutral and bam.

OF COURSE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE HAD THE POWER OFF BEFORE TRYING ANY OF THIS.

The setup process after it is up and powered is very easy,  It will make a wifi network within the area of the switch, and then after downloading the app from the playstore or apple store accordingly, simply connect to the network and then enter the app, It will walk you through the naming and setup of the switch and connecting it to your wifi network.

The app itself works rather well and is quick to respond, though the widget version seems laggy and sometimes unresponsive,  But that also may be due to the fact I am on android 8.1.1 beta channel on my pixel xl.  So further testing is needed.

The switch itself is very sleek and has a faint backlight for in the dark and easy finding, the bottom half of it is the switch with only a slight depress of it.

Installation of it, Besides the research of my unique wiring situation, only took about 10 minutes, Though it is to be noted that It took up extra box fill, (almost the whole standard 3/4" box,  So note that you may need to replace the box or adjust accordingly.

Thanks for your time and next we'll be reviewing the Google Home assistant speaker from google.  And a couple of the different services we have been trialing as well.

Balloonicorn.


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