Summary
after you snag enough smart home devices installed, some problems begin to pop up.
The Brilliant Plug-In Panel wants to make it easy to control smart home devices.
But while installation is easy, using the gadget in the real world is problematic.
Brent Dirks / MakeUseOf
Due to financial hardships,Brilliant stopped selling its products and terminated its support staff.
The rest of this review has been left unedited.
The Brilliant Plug-In Control Panel brings smart home control in a dedicated hardware gear.
The Brilliant Plug-In Control Panel brings smart home control in a dedicated hardware device. It sports a 5-inch LCD touchscreen and two touch-sensitive controllers specifically for light switches. It doesn’t need to be installed in an existing light switch with a neutral wire. The panel fits flush mount to the wall and uses an existing power outlet. You can place the cord down the wall or inside it. Along with acting as a standalone Amazon Alexa product, you can add a wide variety of other smart home devices from manufacturers.
It sports a 5-inch LCD touchscreen and two touch-sensitive controllers specifically for light switches.
It doesnt need to be installed in an existing light switch with a neutral wire.
The panel fits flush mount to the wall and uses an existing power outlet.
Brent Dirks / MakeUseOf
you might place the cord down the wall or inside it.
What Is the Brilliant Plug-In Panel?
Before smart home devices, controlling your light switch was simple: youd flick a switch on the wall.
Brent Dirks / MakeUseOf
But Brilliant wants to replace its old-school cousin and provide a full-featured control panel for all of your devices.
But there are some drawbacks to those models.
Im not shy about tackling DIY projects, especially installing smart home products like thermostats and smart locks.
But electrical work is something I always leave to my local electrician.
So Ive never previously been interested in Brilliants technology.
The company realized those issues and has released the Plug-In Panel.
As you might have noticed by the name, theres no need to replace any light switch.
you could place the panel anywhere in the home on a wall.
All you need is an electrical outlet within 13 feet.
A big part of the Plug-In Panel is the 5-inch diagonal touchscreen on the left side.
Thats the main part of the control panel where you will interact with smart devices and more.
There is also a camera and microphone on top of the panel.
The camera allows you to monitor the room where the panel is installed using the companion app.
Much like many Amazon Echo Show models, there is a built-in privacy switch to suspend the camera.
It also sports a motion, temperature, and ambient light sensor.
Brent Dirks / MakeUseOf
To better fit in with any home, its available in six color options.
Youll first mount the backplate and then attach the control panel itself.
The power cord can either be run on the wall or inside the wall.
Brent Dirks / MakeUseOf
Youll need a drill and screwdriver, but the entire process took just 10 minutes.
With the flush-mount design, the panel looks great no matter where you install it.
It didnt look particularly great though, as the cord did stand out on the wall.
Brilliant should include more than one length of cablepossibly a 6-foot optionto give users more flexibility on installation location.
I was left with around 6 feet of cabling that I tried to tuck away as cleanly as possible.
I have around 40 devices in my home from a wide variety of different manufacturers.
Then theres another issue.
More than likely, if you have many smart home devices, some wont be supported by the panel.
Before purchasing, youll want to readBrilliants compatibility list.
Less than half of my smart devices were supported.
And even if some manufacturers are shown as supported, that doesnt mean all their products are.
Brilliant offers Arlo support, but just a limited number of products that dont include my exterior cameras.
If your Arlo camera is supported, you need a SmartThings account to connect to Brilliant.
Theres a wholeBrilliant pagethat details the multi-step process.
You will also need to create different rooms and place products into those.
So I had to grab my phone or use a Siri voice command to one of my existing HomePods.
Voice assistant support is also limited.
Apple HomeKit and Google Assistant users are out of luck, however.
The control panel can interact with the other two major smart home protocols with very limited support.
you could use those voice assistants only with light switches that are already set up on the control panel.
There are four main configurable panels with a small control strip on the bottom.
you might choose a wide variety of options for each of the panels.
Some of those include a specific room, equipment, or scene youve created with Brilliant compatible devices.
While the sliders were responsive, I was disappointed in the delay after using them.
Many times, it could be at least four to five seconds before the lights would act.
Thats disappointing as lighting control is one of the most sensible and intuitive uses of the Plug-In Panel.
Interacting with other smart home devices on the panel was a bit better, but not by much.
Even with the panels issues, there were some nice features.
One of the best is its Sonos integration.
I have several Sonos speakers in different rooms throughout my house.
And with the Plug-In Panel, I can select music from my Sonos favorites and start playback.
You wont be able to browse or search a streaming service.
I also enjoyed uploading my own photos to use as a screensaver when the control panel isnt being used.
The high-resolution screen looks great and is very responsive.
you could also choose to turn the display off unless it is touched or motion is detected.
There are no other true competing devices on the market.
After trying out the rig, adding another middleman control system to my smart home didnt make much sense.
