Wemo Smart Plug Not Detected in App — How to Fix It

What it means

Wemo 'Not Detected' is the status the Belkin Wemo app shows next to a smart plug when the app can't see the plug on your home network.
Belkin's own support page (belkin.com/support-article/?articleNum=8056) documents this exact status.
The plug itself is often still working — it can still run schedules and timers — but the app has lost its way to it on the LAN.
Belkin's published guidance is to power-cycle the plug, restart the phone, and confirm both devices are on the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi band.

Affected Models

Wemo Mini Smart Plug (F7C063)
Wemo Smart Plug (WSP080)
Wemo WiFi Smart Plug (F7C063)
Wemo Insight Smart Plug (F7C029)
Wemo Light Switch (F7C030) — same Not Detected behaviour
Most Wemo plugs and switches on the original Wemo app (not the newer Belkin app)

Common Causes

Phone is on 5GHz Wi-Fi but the plug is on 2.4GHz (Wemo plugs only support 2.4GHz)
Wemo app cache stale after a router reboot or IP renewal
Plug lost its Wi-Fi connection (often a brief outage during a router restart)
Newer router has features (band steering, AP isolation, IGMP snooping changes) that block the Wemo's mDNS discovery
App-side glitch that a reinstall clears

How to Fix It

Power-cycle the Wemo plug.

Unplug the Wemo plug from the wall.
Wait 10 seconds.
Plug it back in.
Wait 60 seconds for it to rejoin Wi-Fi — the LED on the plug should go from blinking to solid.
Open the Wemo app and check whether Not Detected is gone.
Force-close and reopen the Wemo app.

On iOS: swipe up from the bottom and swipe the Wemo app away.
On Android: open recent apps and swipe Wemo away.
Then re-open the app.
A stale app state caches the Not Detected status — a fresh launch re-scans the network and often finds the plug immediately.
Make sure your phone is on 2.4GHz Wi-Fi.

Wemo plugs only support 2.4GHz.
If your phone is on the 5GHz band of the same network name, the Wemo app sometimes can't discover the plug across bands.
Forget the 5GHz band on your phone temporarily or pick the explicit 2.4GHz SSID if your router exposes both.
Wemo's own setup explicitly requires the phone to be on 2.4GHz during initial setup for this exact reason.
Restart the phone.

Hold the phone's power button > restart.
Phone-side mDNS caches sometimes get stuck and only a full restart clears them.
After restart, re-open the Wemo app and check.
Reinstall the Wemo app.

Delete the Wemo app from the phone.
Restart the phone.
Reinstall from the App Store / Play Store.
Sign in with your existing Wemo account — your plugs are linked to the account, not to the app install, so nothing is lost.
This clears any corrupt local app state that survived a normal restart.
Check router settings for multicast / mDNS.

If Not Detected returns persistently after every fix, log into your router admin.
Look for settings like 'Multicast forwarding', 'IGMP snooping', 'AP isolation', or 'Client isolation' — make sure multicast is allowed and clients are NOT isolated from each other.
Wemo's discovery uses mDNS multicast; if the router blocks it, the app never finds the plug.

When to Call a Professional

Not Detected doesn't need service.
If a power-cycle, a phone restart, and an app reinstall all fail, the issue is on the router side — Wemo's discovery uses mDNS multicast which some modern routers block by default.
Re-enabling 'allow multicast' or 'IGMP snooping off' in your router admin almost always fixes a persistent Not Detected.

Frequently Asked Questions

If the plug works (the schedule still runs), why does the app care that it's Not Detected?

Two things stop working when the plug is Not Detected.
First — Alexa or Google Home control through the Wemo skill stops responding, because Alexa reaches the plug via the same cloud relay the Wemo app uses to discover it.
Second — you can't change schedules, rename the plug, or trigger an immediate on/off from the app.
Existing schedules already saved to the plug keep running locally without the app being able to talk to it.
So if your plug just runs a fixed daily timer and you don't use voice control, Not Detected is mostly cosmetic — but for any change or voice command, you need to fix it.