Wemo and Phyn offer even more smarts for your home

Everything around us is getting smarter, from the phones in our pockets to even the plugs we put on our walls. They can be a bit overwhelming at times and yet also miss out on opportunities to make more efficient use of limited natural resources inside the house. That's where new products from Wemo and Phyn, both members of the larger Belkin International, come in to make smart homes and people even smarter.

Wemo is perhaps best known for the smart its smart plugs and smart switches but having so many connected devices plugged in can sometimes be more counterproductive. The Wemo Stage helps you orchestrate all of that by letting you tie together appliances and connects to six possible scenes via three buttons. The $49.99 Wemo Stage is compatible with Apple HomeKit and can fit in Wemo and Decora faceplates or even used as a remote control.

The Wemo Wi-Fi Smart Plug, on the other hand, is the company's smallest smart plug ever. The $24.99 white box can make any appliance smart by allowing for remote control via a mobile app. Of course, you can also ask Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant to do that work for you as well.

Many smart devices are designed to help homeowners wisely manage their use of electricity but very few offer the same insight when it comes to water. That's what the Phyn XL 1.5-inch and 2-inch products try to offer by connecting to the Internet, via Wi-Fi or Ethernet. With an integrated shutoff valve, the Phyn XL can let users regulate and control the water that passes through the pipes.

Last and definitely not the list, Phyn's new Smart Water Assistant above offers smart water monitoring on a fixture-by-fixture basis. The $299 DIY product can be installed under a sink to monitor water use and alert homeowners of possible leaks before they get worse and cost them more money.