WEMO is a series of products from Belkin International, Inc. that allows users to control home electronics from anywhere. This appears to be a subset of home automation.
WEMO is just an example of the whole new world of devices, with IP addresses that can communicate on the internet and that includes the home WiFi.
Benefits?
To most people this sounds like a great advance with many benefits. Think of the time they could save by having control over home devices from your office, on the road, out of town.
Imagine turning the coffee maker in the kitchen on when you wake up and are still in bed. Wow. And turning the lights on the driveway off at 10 pm, automatically. Or giving you an SMS message at sunset with the current temperature? The geeks will really love this stuff.
See this site that proposes that you might use a motion detector to turn the fan or aircon on when the cat uses the cat toilet. No kidding. see this article from Australia
Down Side?
There is a growing segment of the population that believes that RFR (radio frequency radiation or microwave radiation) causes health problems. (RFR has not been proven to be Safe) Some of these people are quite sensitive to RFR and must avoid areas with RFR from WiFi routers, Cell towers, cell phones and wireless smart meters otherwise they have health problems.
So, this addition of more devices talking to each other and a controller using WiFi RFR will simply increase the level of impact on the health of all people in the area.
The WiFi RFR has a limited range of 50-100 feet which you can check out with your smart phone connection to WiFi. This means people living in a condominium or an apartment with neighbours on 2 or 3 or 4 sides and upstairs and downstairs, each with several WiMo gadgets will be exposed to lots of RFR.
If you believe that living in an environment with high RFR is not good for your health and should be regarded as toxic, THEN you must try to avoid these new WiFi gadgets like the WiMo. Also, you should read all there is about the health effects and what you must do because the health you save may be your own or that of your family or friends.
The companies that are developing these toxic items have spent a lot of money on the R and D and they expect to make lots of money from the people who buy into this wireless home automation world. So expect to see an increasing flood of these devices, lots of advertising and lots of claims that RFR poses no health impacts.
See these sites for more information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belkin_WEMO