I plan to look for devices that support open protocols and open firmware, but in the meantime I need to vent about this.
Here’s the only status I can find of the Wemo app/service:
https://downdetector.com/status/wemo/
While investigating not being able to login to the Wemo app for three days, I discovered that Belkin announced they’re turning off their cloud services for Wemo in a couple months. They only announced it in July of this year.
https://www.belkin.com/support-article/?articleNum=335419 (archive.org)
Some of the light switches will still work with HomeKit, but I have one that doesn’t have the necessary QR code. Belkin (Wemo) says to find an e-waste recycler. Companies should be required to provide a path to install open firmware when they stop supporting their products. Apparently you can install OpenWRT on these if you haven’t patched an old exploit:
https://www.realmtech.net/2016-04/openwrt-on-a-belkin-wemo-easy-way
One more gripe: They apparently emailed their customers (but who reads email?) but failed to put an announcement in their app—the obvious place to put it.
It’s such a “fuck you, we’ve got your money” move that I have no plans of buying any Belkin product again.
I guess I’ll get to enjoy the journey I’ll be taking to find out what the latest developments in open devices has been since I installed my closed-system devices. Thankfully the options and community has been growing.
Lingering thought (and their outage is now over after an embarrassingly long time)…
Belkin has such short-term thinking with this. They can either burn enthusiast customers, or they could invest in loyalty. If they would provide documentation and work with some open source entity (like Canonical), who could write a self-hosting server and possibly spin up one to assist us. Then they should release a final firmware update that talks to these servers and also provides a feature for installing third-party firmware in hopes that the open source community will step up and create it.
Although they are dropping support, that way we wouldn’t feel totally abandoned and insulted.