These days it can be difficult to get into smart home products with so many different standards and brands out there. Anytime we see universal gear that attempts to bring the whole thing together, regardless of how you have invested your cash already, it’s worth investigating. Brilliant showed up at CES 2018 with what it describes as “the world’s smartest light switch” and so far, it has our attention…
Brilliant Control is essentially a hub or panel designed to become your main smart home control center. It not only brings all your smart home gear control to one place (or most of it), but it’s also designed to replace your typical light switches.
After a 5 to 10 minute installation process, Brilliant’s built-in touchscreen, camera and microphone become available to you. For example, it can access your Ring video doorbell, allow for two-way intercom services (in homes with more than one Brilliant panel installed), and keep Alexa on the ready for all your Amazon voice command purchases. Google Assistant features are also on the way according to Brilliant.
Fully integrated with Sonos, Bose, Ring, Wink, Nest, ecobee, SmartThings, Honeywell and more, Brilliant can basically control just about all of the smart gear in your home. The attractive wall panel comes in 12 different colors to match your decor and you can even upload your own photos to use as a screen saver.
As a quick note, there does appear to be specific integration with Sonos and Bose speakers, but basic Bluetooth services are still in the pipeline.
Needless to say, we could all use a centralized hub to control the plethora of (sometimes) not so integrated smart home gear out there. While it is certainly an extra expense, it is likely worth it for anyone invested in these technologies and looking for a more streamlined way to control them.
Best of all, it’s not going to reach into your pocket all that deep. Starting at just $200, the Brilliant smart home panel is about accessible as you can get for a product like this. But that is for a single hub, if you’re looking for deeper, whole home control, it jumps up to about $350 for a 4 switch panel. All of Brilliant’s smart home panels are set to release sometime this February.
Stay locked to Toys as the week rolls on for all the best announcements from CES 2018.
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