Belkin
More info
- Creator
- Chet Pipkin, Bob Belkin
- Released
- 1983
- Owner
- Foxconn (from 2018)
- Type
- Accessory maker
A Californian accessory brand that went from printer cables in a garage to owning Linksys.
Started in California in 1983, Belkin made its first money on cables and surge protectors back when every PC needed a tangle of both. It became the brand hanging on the pegs of every electronics store: USB hubs, KVM switches, chargers and, later, iPhone accessories.
The ambitions grew. Belkin moved into home routers and smart-home gear with Wemo, and in 2013 bought Linksys from Cisco. In 2018 Belkin itself was bought by Foxconn, which thereby owned both the factory and the logo on the box. Wemo's cloud service was switched off in January 2026 – a reminder that cloud-dependent gadgets come with a best-before date.