WeMo Link and Bulbs

Belkin is selling their starter kit for $50 off plus $10 of with coupon code SAVEWEMO. $39.99 w/ free shipping. Comes with 2 Bulbs and 1 WeMo Link.

http://m.belkin.com/us/p/P-F5Z0489/

So, I haven’t bought this yet. It sounds like a good deal. I’m pretty sure the Link hub is useless if I’m using ST hub though. Any opinions on this deal? Should I buy it? The bulb itself is $20 on Amazon. So this deal basically sounds like you are getting a free Link hub. But I don’t think I need it.

edited to correct Aaaaaaaagh! Told you guys I was tired! I totally mixed up two completely different devices: the Belkin WeMo “link hub” used with the Belkin WeMo bulbs, GE “Link hub” used with the GE Link bulbs. My thanks to @savij for pointing out this error.

The Belkin WeMo bulbs are Zigbee, but they are a proprietary zigbee that can only talk to their own hub. So they cannot be connected directly to the hue bridge or to the smart things hub the way to GE link bulbs can. My bad. The WeMo Bulb/SmartThings integration is cloud to cloud. Some people find it flaky, some people find it works well. But it does not have the drop off problem I described. That applies to the cheap GE link bulbs.

My apologies for any confusion caused by my total absence of brain earlier in the day. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Looks like its 3 LED bulbs(extra one automatically added to cart)… Still if there is no real need for the Link Hub, this doesn’t sound that great!

Yeah, you are right. I missed that part. 1 extra bonus bulb. Does anyone use these? Are they reliable with Smartthings?

Thanks for the info. I’m pretty sure even occasional disconnects isn’t going to be acceptable with my wife. Maybe I’ll just go with the more expensive brands.

I am having an interesting problem with the GE bulbs. I linked them with my Hue hub when the echo gained the capability to control Hue. Since then it has been really bad. The link bulbs would always be dithered out on the Echo app. About a week later they started showing as unreachable in the Hue app. Now since I’ve migrated to V2 of the ST hub, they always miss when I use routines. Only the GE bulbs though. All of the Hue bulbs work fine. I never had any trouble with the GE bulbs until after I took them off of the ST hub directly. Is this a common issue?

Hi @JDRoberts,

Are you sure you’re not confusing the Belkin Wemo Link hub with the GE Link hub? Wemo calls their hub the Link and it’s sold with the Belkin Wemo bulb as mentioned in this thread by @Eidaven. The Belkin Link hub is also sold with their Belkin/Osram starter kit (http://amzn.com/B00XREGUVY) - “Starter Set includes two tunable white LED A19 bulbs and one WeMo Link.”

The confusing thing is that GE also has a hub that they call the Link Hub that connects to their Link bulbs (http://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-Link-Starter-Pack-Link-Hub-2-Link-A19-Light-Bulb-PLINK-SKIT/205311040). I believe this is the hub that only works with the GE Link bulbs. To make things even more convoluted, there is the Wink hub which is often paired with the GE Link bulbs which does control other devices and bulbs (http://www.wink.com/products/light-monitor-kit/).

It’s enough to make your head spin :slight_smile:

Yeah, I totally did. Thanks for the correction! I fixed my post above.

I’ve been using the GE link bulbs with no problem; definitely plan to get more.