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I’m not surprised that there are a lot of kinks to work out with the Brilliant, since it's a relatively new product that comes packed full of functions. Although Brilliant says that any user can connect to any Nest thermostat, their director of product management did have to send me an email that let me log into my Nest account, in order to authorize the Brilliant to access it. #Brilliant smart home control panel updateThey said they'd discovered a bug with the Sonos's new API and rolled out an update that evening. That brought the Hue lights online, but to get the Sonos, I had to contact the team at Brilliant. The Hue lights and Sonos didn’t show up immediately, so I reset the router. I did predict, and dread, the tedious back-and-forth between my husband and me as we tried to remember who had registered for what device, which email address they'd used, and what all the long-forgotten passwords were.īut I had other snafus. In theory, it’s as simple as touching the panel, selecting a room, and tapping the Add Device button. #Brilliant smart home control panel how toThe panel walked me through how to do it.Īdding our smart home devices to the Brilliant was annoying, in ways that were both predictable and unexpected. I also linked the Brilliant to my Amazon account so I could use Alexa. I downloaded the Brilliant app, where, obviously, the first order of business was to upload pictures of my kids from my camera roll to roll continuously whenever the Brilliant was on. Once installed and online, the possibilities made me a little giddy. #Brilliant smart home control panel BluetoothThe Brilliant has both Wi-Fi connectivity and Bluetooth capabilities. #Brilliant smart home control panel installA licensed electrician will come install one panel for you, starting at $199, with tiered pricing for multiple panels. For anyone who doesn't have experience with electrical wiring, Brilliant will soon be announcing an installation service. Shutting off the breaker and manipulating live wires isn’t hard, but it is nerve-wracking, and I was grateful to be able to do it with someone who had done it before without burning our house down (yet). My husband rewired our house himself, and I needed to enlist his help to figure out which cord was what. But when I unscrewed our panel, a rat’s nest of cords popped out at me. And when I watched Brilliant’s clear and simple installation video, installation seemed easy. That's easy enough a double switch gang box and compliant wiring is what you find when you unscrew the panel for most double light switches. You need a 120-volt double switch gang box that is grounded and wired in compliance with National Electric Code. ![]() ![]() I chose to install the Brilliant by my front door. It’s only a little bigger than a regular light switch panel. The two-switch panel is 4.76 inches wide and 5.3 inches tall, with an LCD touch screen that has 720 x 1280 resolution and two indented sliders that work as dimmers. At the moment, it’s still a little too clunky to substitute for my iPad, but I’m optimistic that that will change in the very near future. I was excited to test the Brilliant two switch panel (Brilliant also offers one-, three-, and four-switch panel configurations). It integrates an astonishing number of smart home devices, like the Nest and Ecobee thermostats, the Ring doorbell, the Phillips Hue bulbs, and Sonos speakers. ![]() In addition to providing Amazon Alexa services when connected to your Amazon account, it has a microphone, a camera, a motion detector, and an alarm. The Brilliant panel is a simple computer, rather than an upgraded smart switch. It takes control of your smart house out of your pocket and drills it into the wall with a panel that anyone can use. The concept behind tech start-up Brilliant is therefore-excuse me here-brilliant. Toggling between multiple apps is annoying, and so is sitting in your house for anyone who isn't you. If you have a smart home, you most likely control it with your smartphone or personal tablet. In retrospect, we were lucky that she was even able to operate the front door. I had accidentally packed the iPad mini, which serves as our house’s smart control panel. She could even start the robot vacuum, if she wanted! No pressure or anything. She could peruse the full extent of my Apple Music subscription on our Sonos, or watch Netflix on our Apple TV. I lured her in with the promise of access to our fully-equipped smart house. Earlier this year, I asked a friend to dog-sit for us while my family was on vacation. ![]()
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