Smart Home Control (2-Switch Panel) for Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple HomeKit, Ring, Sonos and More

So this review has been a long time coming. I really wanted to update my home with smart devices. I believed I had all the right wiring in order to install this Brilliant device. The product description states the need for a ground and neutral wire. Unfortunately, I was wrong and should have checked our wiring first. We do not have the neutral wire needed in our 26 year old house. In order to install the device we realized we would need new wiring and the estimate to have this done with the way our house and vaulted roof is situated would cost a small fortune and something we are unable to do as of now. Maybe someday. In the meantime, I wanted to write a review still at least to say, don't make my mistake. Check your wiring before purchasing! I absolutely love the idea of this device and when able will be installing. The outside of the device is clean and streamlined and looks quite elegant compared to standard switches. When we had attempted installation, it was very simple and would have been done in about ten minutes. I cannot wait to finally install it and still very much recommend the product. Looks great.

Finally got this installed in my living room. It took a while because I knew there was a rats nest of wires in in my switch box, and I didn't want to mess with it. I unhooked all the wires from my existing switches and hooked up the brilliant unit. Nothing worked. In fact none of my outlets worked anymore either. My wife was really proud of my electrical skills at this point in the project. I ended up identifying all the wires, then I stared at them for a while trying to understand what the goofball that wired my house in the first place. When I figured enough time had elapsed, I started hooked everything back up. It worked this time, and fired up. Programming the unit and hooking it into my alexa was easy, it just walked me through it all. Then it had me calibrate my 3 lights and name them. The brilliant allows you to control 3 lights with dimming, and is compatible with 3 way switches. The thing is pretty smart too, it automatically figures out the traveler wires, so you don't have to worry. The panel looks great. Very high tech. With multiple brilliant devices, they can work together to include being intercoms between rooms (with video if you want). If you like techy things and smart home devices, this is going to be a fun device for your home.

The Brilliant smart device will help integrate your smart products, but at a price. First, the device is large and bulky. It needs a neutral and a ground wire in the junction box. I was installing mine into a newer home with a double gang box behind a single gang switch so there was lots of room to fit all the wires in. The device is larger than a standard GFCI outlet, so you might have issues with a busy single gang box. I like the screensavers and the integration with other smart devices like my Phillips Hue light bulbs. But it is limited on the number of devices it can integrate with, such as speakers (It works with the expensive Sonos brand). While it integrates with Google Home, the voice control only uses Alexa. Google Assistant is not available yet, but is coming soon. But with Alexa, no other device is needed. Camera live view works well, but it is spotty on the initial connection. Audio is 2-way and works good. The motion sensor is a big plus but it does not integrate with other devices such as smart bulbs. Also the motion will occasionally turn on with no motion, like in the middle of the night. But you can set the lights on a timer and a schedule. So motion turn on and turn off in 10 minutes. With Hue, you can set for nighttime mode at 10% bright, but Brilliant does not have this. Preset scenes are helpful but do not integrate well with the motion sensor which is a big limitation. Overall, I see that many improvements are coming so it might be worth a wait and see. At this price, I would expect to see better features. The installation book is helpful, but wrong. At step 7, it loses its congruency, and leaves you hanging. Just use your smarts and install it the way you know you should. Pros: Easy to Use, Lots of Features, Great Sound Quality, Motion-Activated, Stylish Cons: missing some key features, large controller

The Brilliant smart device will help integrate your smart products, but at a price. First, the device is large and bulky. It needs a neutral and a ground wire in the junction box. I was installing mine into a newer home with a double gang box behind a single gang switch so there was lots of room to fit all the wires in. The device is larger than a standard GFCI outlet, so you might have issues with a busy single gang box. I like the screensavers and the integration with other smart devices like my Phillips Hue light bulbs. But it is limited on the number of devices it can integrate with, such as speakers (It works with the expensive Sonos brand). While it integrates with Google Home, the voice control only uses Alexa. Google Assistant is not available yet, but is coming soon. But with Alexa, no other device is needed. Camera live view works well, but it is spotty on the initial connection. Audio is 2-way and works good. The motion sensor is a big plus but it does not integrate with other devices such as smart bulbs. Also the motion will occasionally turn on with no motion, like in the middle of the night. But you can set the lights on a timer and a schedule. So motion turn on and turn off in 10 minutes. With Hue, you can set for nighttime mode at 10% bright, but Brilliant does not have this. Preset scenes are helpful but do not integrate well with the motion sensor which is a big limitation. Overall, I see that many improvements are coming so it might be worth a wait and see. At this price, I would expect to see better features. The installation book is helpful, but wrong. At step 7, it loses its congruency, and leaves you hanging. Just use your smarts and install it the way you know you should.

The brilliant smart home controller is simply spectacular. It's rare for me to want to include a wi-fi based device to my network vs zwave/zigbee, the latter of which I can connect through a central controller. Normally Wi-fi devices are a hassleto configure with yet another app I need to use for setup. Not the case with Brilliant as they created an incredible, well-integrated and clearly thought out devices complimenting other home automation platforms. Physically this is an attractive device. Handsome appearance, durable product that's intuitive enough for a 3 year old to use without instruction. The base and the panel are in two pieces and were the panel to fail, the base has physical switches to allow you to continue operating your lights. My needs were fairly simple. I wanted a controller for my lights in the kitchen - two 3-way switches. The Brilliant switch brings the control with some nice add ons. Motion control - Instead of adding another device, motion control is built in turning the panel on only when people are present and turning off the lights after 30 minutes (custom setting). Ring Integration - I often don't have my phone handy while cooking. When my ring doorbell goes off it shows the person on the screen and allows me to talk to them through the panel Video Chat - While I don't have a second panel, I can connect via the app to check on my daughter whose home office is built into the kitchen. Don't video? Close the shutter and the camera is blocked Photoframe - I can add 100 photos from the app allowing it to cycle through either curated pictures from Brilliant, my own photos or both. Voice assistant - While this doesn't include a speaker for playback, the panel serves to allow you to use voice controls or ask Alexa/Google Home questions. I don't see myself using these for all the switches in my house. However - strategically in places where I want a panel to control my entire house, add video chat, pickup ring integration etc are all great uses cases to expand your system with a fantastic switch product.

Junction box MUST have a ground for control panel to operate. I made made the mistake of not checking and had to run a ground, not fun. Installing was as easy as replacing any receptacle or power switch. Has a nice clean finish. The main body is a little big and deep, will probably not fit in a box that has more then just the single incoming and out going circuits. Comes with 6 inches of wire and wire nuts.

I did a bunch of research before deciding to get this light switch. Install appears to be very easy to do but unfortunately due to covid and some restrictions I have been unable to get my electrician out soon enough to have it installed for my review here. Some of the features include It turns a regular light switch into smart lights: Supports LED, CFL, halogen, and incandescent bulbs and works with dimmable lighting. Installs in minutes with no additional hubs, ugly wires, batteries, or programming required Connects to Sonos, Ring, Hue, SmartThings, Ecobee, and many more Personalizable touchscreen: Display photos, art, or weather forecasts. This is the feature I like the best! And cannot wait to use it! : Ask for home control, weather, sports, and more Video intercom: Includes a microphone and camera with privacy shutter. I plan to connect all my compatible security devices cameras etc to this unit. This will be my first move into building my smart home. Brilliant has many products that will automate your home! I highly recommend this product

A versatile product that combines 2 switches/dimmers for lights with a touch panel for controlling functions of your smart home. The dimmer controls are actually 2 linear indentations that are touch sensitive, so there are no moving parts. Just tap the indentation to turn on/off and slide your finger along the indentation to raise or lower the light level. The touchscreen works well and has a great, sharp display. It has voice activation capability so you can configure it to let you talk to Alexa (its tiny speaker makes it a little hard to hear though), and motion sensing that you can configure to turn on specified lights for instance. You can also add a “Brilliant” skill to Alexa that lets you remotely control the lights from your smart speaker. It has a camera that is disabled by default and also has a slideable flap to cover it for privacy. Two of these units can be used as a video intercom for instance, but we haven’t tried that. IMPORTANT: note that the product doesn’t use a standard (Decora) switch dimmer fascia. The electronics are housed in a module that mounts in a wall box and has a separate faceplate containing the controls and display that snaps onto the front. So effectively this model is ONLY usable in 2-gang wall boxes. It could be mounted in a 3- or 4-gang box, but there would be no way to have a faceplate cover the other 1 or 2 positions. When we got it we had intended to use it in one of 3 locations in the house, but unfortunately they were not 2-gang boxes, so we had to find a different place for it. If you are going to buy one, double-check the type of box you will mount it in beforehand – you can buy 1, 2, 3 or 4 switch models. Be prepared for some frustration in installation. Despite following the instructions, I initially could not get 3-way light control to work properly. I tried all permutations of connections for the 3 wires to the unit, but no luck. So, I gave up on that for the moment, planning to come back to it, and installed the front panel. Be aware that dimming doesn’t work until configured later in set-up, so I wasted time trying to figure out why it wasn’t working (but it does work well once configured!) Next up was trying to get the control to connect to our WiFi network to begin the set-up process. It wouldn’t consistently see the WiFi network despite always seeing my printer WiFi! Either it wouldn’t see the router at all, or it would briefly see it but would report “This network appears to be off-line” while I tried to key on the WiFi password. I followed a series of troubleshooting steps in the brilliant.tech website help section and finally (after about 20 min) got it to connect after rebooting our router. Once connected, the set-up process is pretty straightforward though. It does involve setting up an account with Brilliant based on your email address with a password you assign and a code that is then provided to enable continuation of account set-up. For some strange reason it wants your birthday and won’t proceed unless you give it a valid one (not a child’s.) After set-up I discovered that 3-way switching of the one light works now, so it must have been another function that doesn’t work until configured in software. It would have been nice if the installation instructions had said that up front. Overall a great product though.

This is a great little product. It is one of those items that you didn't think you needed, but once you get it they are super useful and you don't want to live without! This system is super simple to install. All you need is a light switch. You can still use the touchscreen to control the light switch being replaced, so don't worry about needing a 2nd witch. We have a split floor plan, and our AC smart thermostat is in the opposite side of our bedroom. This brilliant touchscreen control allowed us to control the AC from our room. It also works with most other smart home electronics like cameras and door bells.

I love it! It was a wonderful gift. However, I have to admit that I didn’t have to pay for it. In fact, I didn’t actually know what it was so I chose to install it in place of a dual-gang light switch that we almost never used. Now that I have had it working for a few days it is wonderful and easy to use. I could have put it anywhere! GREAT LIGHT SWITCH * It provides a little slide show of family pictures and I can change the pictures any time I want using the Brilliant android App. * I chose to have it include the time and outside temperature on the display. It also lists the date and the day of the week but the font used is so tiny that you have to walk over to read those. * I chose to have the display controlled by a motion sensor. It turns off when there is no one in the room -- or when no one has moved for several minutes. * Although I will have to explain to guests how to use the grooves to turn on or adjust the lights, it is actually easier to use than the decora switch that it replaced which had a tiny stick for adjusting brightness GREAT SMART HOME DEVICE * It was pretty simple to integrate it with my Samsung Smartthings Network. * I finally have lights I can control from my phone and include in automations * I can turn on or dim the lights from my recliner while watching tv * While away visiting relatives, I was able to open my Smartthings app and schedule my lights to turn on and off to help make my house look more lived in -- even though I forgot to do this before I left. * I could have created “scenes” in the Brilliant App to do this, but it is SO NICE to be able to use the app I am already familiar with to control my Brilliant Lights as well as everything else. * Using the Brilliant app is actually very simple as long as you remember that the LIGHTS but will control the lights right now. You need to create a “scene” if you want to put the lights on a schedule. * You can also use a “scene” to control a bunch of devices with a single button. I might purchase another Brilliant to replace the light switch near the door leading to my garage and create scenes to set security cameras and door locks into HOME and AWAY modes. However, right now I use Smartthings Geofencing which is even simpler. OUR FIRST ALEXA DEVICE * At first, Alexa couldn’t talk back because I received a faceplate with a defective speaker, but the customer service team was very helpful. A replacement faceplate arrived in less than a week, and it was simple to use that box to return the bad one using the return shipping label they provided. * The defective speaker wasn’t too disappointing because Alexa would still adjust the lights even though we couldn’t understand what she was saying. However, after I installed the replacement faceplate, I realized that Alexa can do a lot more than adjust the lighting. * We can now use alexa from anywhere in our kitchen, entry or great room (the speaker is that sensitive). Alexa can not only turn on and off the lights; she can also report on the weather, figure out how many tablespoons in a quarter cup or start a kitchen timer. I am also working on using an Alexa Blueprint to teach her some of the stuff I get asked a lot in the kitchen -- like how much does our mixing bowl weigh, how many grams for 2 tablespoons of sugar, or how long do we bake our favorite cookies. * Google Home can control the lights, but it doesn’t respond through the Brilliant Speaker like Alexa does. MIGHT BE A GOOD VIDEO INTERCOM I actually never foresee using my brilliant as an intercom. I don’t have a RING doorbell, and my Brilliant Controller is right by the entry so I don’t use it to talk to people at the front door. However, I was able to test the video conference to talk to my husband in the kitchen using my phone and the Android App from my bedroom. * It took at least 30 seconds for the video window to open which could be annoying, but I assume a brilliant-to-brilliant connection would be quicker. * My light switches are placed a little low because my home was designed to be wheel-chair friendly. This puts the brilliant at an awkward height for video conferencing. INSTALLATION NOTES: * The little instruction book that came with it told me It had to be the ONLY dimmer in the circuit so I also had to replace the dimmer at the other side of the room with the dumb switch I removed during the Brilliant installation. The Brilliant installation was VERY helpful with short videos showing me how to label the wires as I removed them from the old switches and then put them in the right places on the Brilliant Controller. It took less than 20 minutes to remove the old switch and install the Brilliant Controller. It could have been faster if I knew what I was doing, but I watched all the short video clips and double checked my work at every step. * Unfortunately, replacing the dimmer with the dumb switch turned out to be more difficult because I couldn’t tell which wire did what. I ended up removing the brilliant controller so I could follow a youtube video that showed me how to figure out which wire was the “common” wire in a 3-way circuit with 2 light switches. * After the Brilliant Controller was installed, it took about an hour to set up the software and link it to Smartthings, Google Home and Alexa. As other have noted the touch keyboard on the Brilliant Controller is very finicky. I tried using a stylus, but I still had to watch very carefully for each letter to change color when touched. It sometimes took two or three taps. It took me 3 tries to connect the Brilliant to my wifi network, but I think it was because it was so hard to type in the password. Unfortunately, while practicing gestures, I popped the Brilliant screen right off the wall! I guess I hadn’t pulled down firmly enough when I mounted the screen on its backplate. When I replaced the screen more carefully (and heard it snap in place this time), it worked fine, but I was no longer in the tutorial. To continue setting things up I went to the home screen and clicked on the Gear Icon in the upper right hand corner. From here, I just went down the list of menu items activating any features that I thought my family would use. I have a lot of IOT devices. Most came over with no problem. However a few came over with strange code names (e.g. FCA002). Therefore, during installation, I put all those devices in a single room as “not lights”. Then when everything else was done, I sat down in front of the Brilliant Controller with the Smartthings App open on the phone in my lap. I turned on the mystery devices one at a time using my phone to figure out which device just turned on. It was simple to edit the name in the Brilliant Controller. After their identities were clear, I moved each of the mystery devices to the appropriate room (or group). Then I went to the other end of my house to try the intercom feature. I don’t have any other Brilliant controllers to use as an intercom, but, after updating the privacy settings and opening the little shutter covering the camera, I was able to use the Android App on my phone to set up a video chat with my husband in the kitchen. It took at least 30 seconds for the video window to open; I assume Brilliant-to-Brilliant communication would be quicker. The image was not as sharp as those from my security cameras, but I could see my husband pretty clearly, and I could hear everything. Unfortunately, my husband could not hear me well at all. Turns out the speaker on the unit I received is defective. Next, I set up Alexa and Google Home which is very simple using the WORKS WITH BRILLIANT menu item. I haven’t used Google or Alexa voice commands before so it was quite rewarding to tell Alexa to “Turn on the Foyer Light”. Even though the defective speaker makes Alexa’s audio feedback completely unintelligible, the screen displays information so I can decipher the gist of our conversation. For example, when I asked her for tomorrow’s weather forecast, Alexa’s audio response was garbled, but the information was beautifully displayed on the Brilliant Screen. I used the HELP feature in the android App to start a live chat with Brilliant Technical Support. A robot asked for more information about me before I was connected with a real person who promptly asked me to send an email with a video sample of audio coming through the Briliant speaker. I was disappointed that I was unable to send the video directly through their chat system, but our email exchange was efficient. He asked a couple more questions and asked for photos of the serial numbers on the box and the back of my Brililant Screen before confirming my name and address to send a replacement screen. Overall, I am very happy with both my Brilliant Controller and the Support Team that stands behind it.