WeMo automates your home the easy way

— -- Perhaps I watched one too many infomercials in the '90s, but one particularly prevalent ad coined a phrase I still employ today: Set it and forget it.

Yet even decades later, we buy gadgets that are bogged down with friction. Here's my message to hardware manufacturers: Build more seamless products. Which is why we have some great examples that require little after thought and work beautifully in the background.

Belkin WeMo takes the electrician out of home automation

Typically, home automation requires contracting a specialized technician. The DIY route requires dabbling in unfamiliar hardware and software, an experience that can be intimidating to the unacquainted.

Belkin simplifies this process with a $50 gadget. With the WeMo Switch, you can program a lamp, coffee maker or another device to run on a schedule. The free iOS app also lets you remotely control the switches from the office, vacation home, on the road, basically anywhere you have a data connection. Add on a motion sensor, which comes bundled with a WeMo Switch for $99.99, and you can set up rules to turn a device on, off or a combination thereof triggered by movement.

Integration with the online service IFTTT (If This, Then That) offers even more functionality, such as the ability to control the switches via tweet, log electricity usage or turn on a heater when the temperature drops below a certain threshold. One particularly useless but fun (or annoying, depending on your take) IFTTT recipe can automate sounding a siren if Salesforce's stock price drops below $100.

Overall, even though Belkin is still working out some kinks on the WeMo (for example, overlapping rules don't coexist very well at the moment), it's an exciting new product on the market with plenty of potential. My only complaint is that these adapters are incredibly bulky, hogging at least two outlets on some surge protectors.

Nest adjusts temperature based on your habits

Learning-thermostats aren't anything new, but Tony Fadell— best known as the designer behind the original iPod — managed to create a slick one that's got people excited about indoor temperature, of all things.

His hot — or cool, depending on your temperature preferences — product is Nest, a thermostat that will automatically turn down heating or cooling after learning a household's behaviors, schedules and preferences. Smart and stylish, Nest ($249) also suggests more energy-efficient temperatures and adjusts them accordingly when you're out of town to help cut down on energy bills. Since it's hooked up to the home network, the thermostat can be controlled via iOS and Android apps and the Web.

In the spring, Nest's first major software release brought an enhanced energy history dashboard, so customers can see an in-depth breakdown of power usage and whether the thermostat's Auto-Away function affected energy usage. Another addition, Airwave, can reduce the air conditioner's runtime by up to 30 percent, according to the company. When the AC is close to the target temperature, it prematurely turns off the compressor and relies on the fan to further cool the room and reach the set temperature.

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