Table of Content
If you want to add any new devices to your network, you'll need to add them to the app, not to Relay directly. There's also no way to customize which devices show up on the Relay and which don't. In-wall control screens seem like an obvious, inevitable component in the smart home, and the Relay may mature into a worthwhile investment. I just can't recommend that you buy one right now, given its price and the fact that it has some growing up to do. A wall-mounted touchscreen seems like an obvious addition to any smart home, but the Wink Relay suffers from high cost and underutliized potential.
Monitor and control locks, security cameras, or sensors to keep tabs on every room in the house. Knowing what’s going on at home at a glance means peace of mind for you and your family. A proximity sensor reacts to your presence while a temperature and humidity sensor keeps tabs on your environment. The Relay also has a speaker and a microphone built into it. Although the audio hardware won't be enabled at launch, Wink VP and general manager Brett Worthington stated that they did indeed have voice control in mind for the future. A single point of control, visible to all, will hopefully minimize that confusion.
Sales Tax for an item #325421379898
Wink provides some basic instruction in its small paper manual, but what it doesn't spell out explicitly is that wiring must include a neutral wire in addition to the line and load wires. The manual instead instructs you to call Wink's help line if you don't have a neutral wire, which seems to leave open the possibility of a workaround. Talking with a Wink support tech revealed only that the neutral wire is indeed required. The built-in speaker and microphone don't do anything right now, and both the Wink app and the Relay's own control options are overly simplistic.
In a household with multiple users, it's easy to step on each other's settings if each person is trying to drive the various connected locks and thermostats from their own mobile device. Just as bad, all it takes is a flick of a standard rocker light switch to disable your smart light programming. The Relay is essentially comprised of two parts, a 4.3-inch Android-based multitouch screen, and a set of programmable mechanical switches.
Wink Relay – Smart Home Wall Controller
You can't set your MyQ Garage to open and close based on your location, although you can use location to trigger behavior in other devices. Your DropCam will only send an image to the Relay once every 15 seconds, rather than showing you a real-time feed like you get on the DropCam app. The Wink Relay brings control over all of your smart home products onto an easy-to-use, wall-mounted touchscreen. If you're keeping up with the blossoming smart home market, you'll know that Wink is aspin-off of crowd-sourced product development shop Quirky. Wink debuted as its own smart home platform back in June, with support for an assortment of connected first and third-party devices. Instantly operate smart products or groups of them at once.
Replaces single or double gang boxes not wired to an AC outlet. Use it to instantly operate smart products or groups of them at once. In addition to controlling devices around your house individually, the Relay will also import any grouped actions you've set up in the Wink App, called short cuts. You could call a short cut "Night mode" for example, and tell your lights to turn off, your garage door to close, and your DropCam to come on. The interactions again err towards simple here, arguably to a fault depending on how much automation you're after. You can't alter specific settings via shortcut on most devices, like putting the DropCam into night vision mode.
Controller / Finance Expert (m/w/d)
Now you, your family, or guests can access your entire smart home all in one place. Relay keeps you aware of what's going on by playing convenient notification sounds. You can even sync up multiple units to take advantage of its intercom functionality . Professional installation by a qualified electrician is recommended. If you are unsure if your light switch is compatible with Relay, visit pro.wink to get help from a professional electrician. Relay keeps you aware of what’s going on by playing convenient notification sounds.
It looks easy to use, and I like the idea of centralizing a smart home control scheme. My reservations come from the fact that too many Quirky/Wink products have shown up for review lacking software polish. If I'm going to go to the trouble of hardwiring the $300 Relay into my wall, it has to be near-flawless.
Finance Manager - Financial Control (Frankfurt)
Wink says you can install the device in any single or double-sized switch box that's not also wired to an AC outlet, and it connects to your home network via Wi-Fi. You can use the switches as standard lighting controls, or program them via the touchscreen to send commands to any smart device on the network. You can consider the Relay an advanced smart home product, since installing it requires removing a light switch and then wiring-in the Relay in its place.
Relay is a touchscreen controller that’s tailored to you. It runs the Wink app, so you can manage all your favorite smart products from one central location. That mobile device-dependency is one of the issues the Relay wants to address. It also wants to be more than just a glorified on/off switch.
Interactions with certain devices are, for various reasons, limited. It's also hard to stomach the $300 asking price when the microphone and speaker don't do much yet. Lights, window treatments, thermostats… Now you, your family, and guests can access your entire smart home all in one place. Put Relay in the room you use most, sync up multiple units, or use the mobile app when you’re away. Get instant access to your connected home on a touchscreen that’s tailored to you.
Relay will need to be installed into a location that has lighting controls only. This is due to the power box in Relay being designed to control lighting and not larger appliances that may be plugged into an outlet. Relay requires a neutral wire connection, so you must connect the neutral wires from your gang box to the neutral wires in the Relay power box using the included push-in connectors. Philips Hue lights won't let you put multiple lights in a group on Wink right now. That means, annoyingly, you have to control any Hue lights on your Relay or in the Wink app individually.
It also looks cool, and makes it easy to hit a macro button (termed "robot") that puts all of the devices in the house in a particular mode, such as "bedtime" or "away." This could be one of a few things, but the best thing to do is make sure the wiring is correct. Turn off power to the switch, remove the main unit, remove the power box and ensure the wiring is correct and that there are no loose wires in the gang box. The sensor on the face of the Wink Relay is a motion/proximity IR sensor. It tells Relay when you’re approaching, giving the unit time to wake up and display your personalized dashboard. Multiple Relays can be turned into an intercom system using the microphone.
That might soon be hugely important to the smart home. Anticipation is building aroundApple's HomeKit smart home API for iOS 8, particularly because of its tie-in with Apple's Siri voice recognition system. Worthington was cagey when I asked whether the Relay's Android-based design would leave Wink customers using the iOS version of the app feeling left out. "It's going to be an exciting fourth quarter," is all he would say. If it works as advertised, the Wink Relay in-wall control panel might just deliver the convenience and ease of use we've been hoping to see in the DIY connected home.
You also can't adjust simple things on the screen like brightness, or the order in which the various control icons appear. The only real setting you can change on the Relay itself is whether it comes on based on your proximity, or via a tap on the screen. It also doesn't live up to its full potential out of the box.
He has worked as a tech journalist since 1994, covering everything from 3D-printing to Z-Wave smart locks. First out of our Smart Relay series the zc-smart-relay comes in wired and wireless with endless possibilities for its use. Temperature, humidity, and proximity sensors put even more data at your fingertips. Responsible for other financial control tasks to support the wider financial control function.
No comments:
Post a Comment