ZDNET’s key takeaways
- The Residence Assistant Join AUX-2 is a brand new sensible house multi-tool.
- It modernizes older units and battles deliberate obsolescence.
- Priced at $69, the Join AUX-2 is now out there for buy.
Residence Assistant is probably probably the most versatile sensible house automation system of all of them, because of the acute customization energy it presents. Immediately, a tiny, new box-shaped machine is giving Residence Assistant customers a method to make their current electronics smarter, reasonably than changing them to maintain up with the occasions.
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The Residence Assistant Join AUX-2 is a multi-purpose piece of {hardware} made by Nabu Casa, the corporate behind official Residence Assistant {hardware}. The machine brings collectively a number of connectivity choices, together with RS-232 serial for older TVs and different tools, and the power to attach older stereo techniques and amplifiers to fashionable multi-room audio setups.
“Essentially the most sustainable machine is the one you already personal,” mentioned Paulus Schoutsen, founding father of Residence Assistant and Nabu Casa. “No machine needs to be left behind as a result of it doesn’t have sensible capabilities, or worst of all, its cloud providers get turned off.
Make dumb parts sensible
Trendy sensible house techniques have a serious downside: they exclude working electronics just because they weren’t designed to combine with in the present day’s sensible house platforms. That is the issue that the AUX-2 addresses.
As a substitute of shopping for a brand new stereo system with sensible options, customers can use the $69 AUX-2 to make the units they already personal smarter, extra linked, and simpler to regulate.
A single AUX-2 can management a number of units, relying on how they’re linked and the interfaces they use. The machine’s restrict has extra to do with the variety of bodily connections required.
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The AUX-2 enables you to join two serial-controlled units straight by the RS-232 ports. The USB port can act as an growth for suitable adapters. You may place one AUX-2 on an leisure middle and join an older stereo and TV, then use one other AUX-2 elsewhere in your own home for extra tools with bodily serial connections.
In line with Residence Assistant, with an AUX-2, you may management an previous AV receiver with out the unique app, have an older TV reply to instructions with out counting on its producer’s cloud servers, or combine current audio tools into fashionable multiroom sound techniques.
This manner, customers received’t must trash a useful piece of apparatus just because the producer stops supporting it.
Other than RS-232 serial, the AUX-2 additionally helps Bluetooth, Z-Wave, USB, PoE, and Wi-Fi for connectivity.
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