Brilliant Smart Home Control (1-Switch Panel) — Alexa Built-In & Compatible with Ring, Sonos, Hue, Google Nest, Wemo, SmartThings, Apple HomeKit — In-Wall Touchscreen Control for Lights, Music, & More

Impressive Little Device
Let me start by saying I’m all in on the Smart Home craze and probably have too many smart devices; SmartThings, Hue, Sonos, Wemo, Yale, Lutron, Nest, Google Hub, Alexa, Harmony, IP Cameras (not Ring) and various other Z-Wave devices. Up until now we’ve been controlling all these things using our phones and a small wall mounted tablet, so I was excited to give this a try.I can’t comment on replacing an existing switch, no fault of Brilliant but all my existing switches are about mid-torso which isn’t ideal so I decided to install this eye-level by adding a new single gang box, meaning it doesn’t physically control a light. It would be nice if Brilliant had a configuration option for this (Stand Alone?) but not a big deal as I configured it as “Always On”.The Good:It’s snazzy, definitely has a cool factor. Has a quality feel to it, pretty simple to install, configuration was easy and any device that wasn’t one of their supported manufacturers I was able to add through SmartThings.Honestly, since the purpose of a smart home is to be smart, we don’t have the need to control much as most lights/switches are on routines or triggered by motion, but it’s convenient to not have to get your phone if you do need to do something. The main thing we’ll be using it for is SONOS and our Nest thermostats and so far it’s been great for that. I haven’t tried the intercom (since I only have one Brilliant device) but thinking that will be useful too. Being able to display your own photos is a nice touch and we like that it displays the time and weather as well when showing the lock screen (see picture). The fact that it acts as a Smart Assistant (Alexa) is very useful.Future Hopes:The camera is just okay, tried the view through the Android App and it was somewhat washed out (see picture).Would like to be able to use Google Assistant rather than Alexa on the device (If there’s a way I couldn’t find it?).I wish it supported IP Cameras, I have five that I can see through Google Hub but not through this device.I’d like to see a “Stand Alone” version (controls no switch) that has a larger screen size but installs in a “single gang”, picture a Brilliant mini-wall mounted tablet!?My Conclusion:A little pricy, but very impressive. Glad I purchased it and will be buying more.

Amazing product, but not ready for use outside the US
I have my entire home automation centered on SmartThings. All my devices are connected to it, and I use it mostly as the main HUB, as it supports several different standards for devices like ZIGBEE, Z-WAVE, and MATTER, so it is a very convenient way of integrating devices that use different communication protocols.The problem with SmartThings is that it doesn’t provide a user interface other than the mobile app – which is convenient, but for a whole house automation system, it relies on third-party controls such as in-wall scene controllers for the end-user interface, which is very hard to configure since there’s no standard for that – Most scene controllers are just a bunch of buttons with no indication of what they do – some have stickers for buttons, but that is simply horrible to use, clean and maintain.The Brilliant Control is the perfect solution for that since it has an amazing, beautiful, and intuitive user interface. Of course, there are issues, especially when it comes to integrating with other technologies. In my specific case, for example, since all my devices are connected to SmartThings, it doesn’t recognize the correct kind for all devices. I have a “network audio” component that works perfectly with SmartThings but gets recognized as a switch by Brilliant, which makes it completely unusable through the Control Panel – the only solution was to hide it :-/Another annoyance is that the software is not ready to be used outside the US. I live in Brazil, so I had a hard time beginning with the installation of the Brilliant app on my iPhone. The app is not available in the Apple Stores outside the US, so initially, I simply couldn’t install the app. I contacted Brilliant Support, and this was their response:”Unfortunately, that would be the only way to download it, our app is only available in North America. The best case is to use a VPN to download the app, once you have it downloaded it will work no matter where you are in the world. “This was simply WRONG because, on Apple Store, it doesn’t depend on the IP address where you are accessing the store from (which could be solved by using a VPN) but on the account settings for the credentials you use to access the store. Just to be fair, Apple does allow you to change the location on your account, but you can do it only once every six months, so it is not a solution for downloading an app from another store. To circumvent this, I had to create a new account with Apple – which they also were unwilling to allow me to do since I was accessing the store from another country.Let me make it clear – I’m only reporting all this because THE APP IS THE ONLY WAY TO DO THE INITIAL SETUP FOR THE BRILLIANT DEVICE, so without the app, nothing happens.After that, when I went through the initial setup process, it quickly became clear that the software was not ready to operate outside the US. Clear examples of it are that I cannot select my correct time zone or location, so neither the clock nor the weather gadgets work for me – which means my home screen just displays a picture – nothing else.As a suggestion, it would be nice to be able to set your own time zone and location – those are very simple settings that would (start to) allow the device to operate worldwide. Another suggestion would be to allow the end-user to specify the device kind for “imported devices” like the ones coming from SmartThings, similar to what you can do in the Alexa App in the same situation.Also – and I understand this does not apply to everyone – in my case, since I’m a developer and developed code for some of the devices I have installed in my house, it would be great to be able to develop device integrations for the Brilliant platform – as it is for other platforms like Apple HomeKit, Google Home, SmartThings, Alexa and Hubitat, just to name a few.Finally, integration with Hubitat would also be great. Since SmartThings recently changed their entire development environment, and that created a lot of issues for their entire community, I see a lot of people moving away from SmartThings into Hubitat – which basically uses the same technology SmartThings deprecated.I sincerely hope this review helps other users who, like myself, are looking for a nice solution for their home automation interface but live outside the US.

I have a mixed filling about this product. Do not get me wrong – it is well built, beautifully packed and installation was not difficult, but the value.What is this product? For the smart light switch it is way to expensive, and no touch screen could replace pleasant klick of a good old button. So, the only way to justify this price and lack of physical button, in my opinion, is to consider this thing as a hub for your smart home, as your central command panel, as an alternative to wall mounted tablet. Is it a good hub? Well, integrations are limited and not always stable. For majority of products integrations rely on cloud, so you would experience some latency. At this point you can not trigger scenes using gestures. Gesture control is only available for lights. No option to set up a “night mode” – default dimming level based on the time of the day. In Canada you can not see weather forecast on lock screen (it is only supported in US).The good news is that most of the issues could be addressed via software updates and customer support agent insured me that they will.The bad news is that it is almost impossible to support large number of third-party devices.I will keep mine and hope for the best.