Tom Parette

Something we have seen in the tech industry is a vendor deciding they will no longer support their product(s) after a given date. With some products this makes sense. With a phone as an example, often it becomes an issue with the new software only supporting specific hardware levels. This can be done for a number of reasons including the hardware in the older phones simply can’t support the new software but often it complicates support for the new software with backward compatibility testing. Having spent 40+ years in the technology business, I fully understand this.

My bigger complaint is when a vendor simply decides they no longer want to support the product for economic reasons. The Wemo products from Belkin are an example of this. Belkin announced end of support on 7/10/25 that the cloud support will end on 1/31/26. This impacts the majority of their home automation products.

Why do I care?

I have spent a considerable amount of both time and money on home automation. Thus, I choose the Wemo family of products, mainly because of Alexa and IFTTT integration but a big factor was the Belkin brand assuming a entity such as Belkin would provide a reasonable level of support as they do on their networking products. Needless to say it was disappointing to find out they are ending support for their products.

What to do?

At this point, I will no longer consider any Belkin offering for any of their solutions. As consumers, we have limited leverage but the power of how we purchase. When we purchase products, especially those that require cloud support, we expect a level of support which represents a reasonable product lifecycle and an upgrade path. Belkin has failed badly with their Wemo products.