(trying to conjure my best Agent Smith voice)

The never-ending journey continues.  First there was music.  Then came cameras.  Finally, a thermostat.  And now… [drumroll] Lights, camera, action!

No… literally: lights, cameras, actions!

That’s right, I’ve finally added lights to my little home automation system, courtesy of Belkin’s WeMo line of WiFi-connected peripherals.  Specifically, I’ve got a Smart Switch and a Light Switch, with potentially more to come (and definitely more to come if Belkin introduces a 3-way Light Switch)

The upshot: welcome-home lighting!  Among other things obviously…

I won’t get into the current use of the Smart Switch, but the Light Switch is currently connected to my front porch lights, and the most useful rule that I’ve coded into the automation system is intended to turn on those lights if somebody is enroute after sunset.  This will happen even if, for example, one spouse is driving home while the other is already at home.  As the coming-home logic is already a staple of the home automation system, the real challenge was getting the system to actually communicate with the Belkin gear.

To that end you can follow some of the discussion in my Twitter feed – but honestly there’s not much there.  Ultimately I went with the Python ouimeaux library – after much gnashing of teeth given my Windows environment rather than the favoured Linux environment – and it was Job Done(tm).

So all credit to Radio Thermostat and Belkin for your cloud services and mobile apps, but… I’m a control freak; I’ll take a RESTful API over a mobile app any day.  (And I’ll take your devices too, of course!)