Wink Hub 2 is the next generation of one of the best home automation hubs on the Market. Now with more horse power and an all new form factor. Wink is still at the top of their game, delivering another great home automation hub with the best protocol support around. Bluetooth LE, Kidde, Lutron Clear Connect, WI-FI, Z-Wave and Zigbee, which will allow you to use all of the best products on the market.
If you are wondering Just what is a home automation hub? A home automation hub like the Wink 2 is a device that you can build your home automation system around. It will allow you to control all of your products from one application. A hub like the Wink 2 will also allow your devices to interact. It could be via a schedule or a series of triggered events. A home automation hub will bring all of your devices together in a seamless automation scheme. That is of course, if you choose a good solution.
I definitely would recommend the Wink Hub 2 to anyone looking to bring their home automation scheme together or just getting started. You can get a hold of this new version for $99 from their website, or a slew of your favorite DIY and electronics stores. Although, there are also lots of bundle deals available.
Three reason I would recommend the Wink Hub 2?
- The Wink App is feature rich and well done, tutorials, FAQ’s, Manuals all at your fingertips.
- Protocol Support, means product support. Lots of compatible devices.
- Stability and updates – Wink Hub 2 has been solid.
I will cover those three reasons and more in this review. I have been using a Wink hub to drive my home automation efforts for a couple years now. To upgrade to the Wink HUB 2 was exciting. Although with any tech product, sometimes the newest version, is not the most stable. Definitely not the case with the Wink HUB 2. In this review I will cover the following topics.
- Differences between Wink and Wink 2
- swapping out my Wink for the Wink HUB 2
- Home automation compatibility and partners
- Scheduling and Robots
- Local and cloud based
- The Wink App
- The all important summary to put it all together.
One of the integral parts of the Smarter Home Automation reviews is the awards! We enjoy issuing these on the products we review to give you a baseline on the decisions you make about the products you bring into your home. Wink HUB 2 is a great centerpiece for your home system. It performed extremely fast and delivered a great experience. The Wink Robots and schedules performed my automation tasks consistently. Its compatibility with Google Home and Amazon Echo opened up voice control for my connected home.
The Wink App, brings all of my devices into one application. This allows me to have all of my smart bulbs, switches, sensors and thermostats all in one app ready to be controlled. Taking all this into account and the great performance of the Wink HUB 2, I am proud to give it the SHA BEYOND AWESOME! AWARD! This equates to a 4.5 out of 5. Lets face it, nothing is perfect. A 4.5 out of 5, is very close. Wink HUB 2 is a great choice for performance in your home automation system. Read on through the review and see just why it scored so high.
The Wink HUB 2 is a great follow on to the original Wink HUB. Wink is a pioneer in the home automation space. They brought one of the first home automation hubs to market with the original Wink. They offer the best app on the market, hands down.
Comparison – Wink V Wink 2
Wink HUB 2 definitely delivers and expands on some of the best things we all liked about the original. The new form factor is great. One of my favorite things about the original Wink was that it was completely wireless. This allowed me to place it in center location in my house and maximize coverage for my devices. The draw back was that I needed to keep it front facing so that I could see the status light.
Now with the new HUB I can do the same thing, but the new ID supports a slender build allowing me to place it like a book on the shelf with the status light on the end. Wink HUB2 supports 5
GHz now, which is a bonus. Also there is a network port. If you would like to hard wire it to your network that is an option as well. Take a look at the table for a quick list of the improvements. You can see the new sexy form factor.
If you are a current owner of a Wink Hub and you are thinking about upgrading, here is some food for thought. You don’t have to upgrade and abandon your original Wink HUB. Wink and their control scheme and app will allow you to use multiple hubs throughout your home. You can add a Wink HUB 2 to your system and there is no need to throw your old hub out. You can use them both as your devices and automation scheme grow.
In the chart I listed Bluetooth under the original Wink HUB. It did offer Bluetooth support, but as the market grew and Wink added product support they never seemed to be able to capitalize on it. You will notice that this has been removed from a lot of the original Wink HUB references. Not that big of deal. What is really great is that the new Wink HUB 2 supports Bluetooth LE. That is the Low Energy specification for Bluetooth. That will allow it to be compatible with a wide range of Bluetooth lights and sensors that are hitting the market.
[sam_pro id=”1_15″ codes=”true”]Keep reading on, on the next page I will go into the upgrade process. This included adding the Wink HUB 2 to my network and then migrating all of my devices to the new HUB. Also, I will go into detail about the partners and compatibility that Wink brings to your home. They have so many devices. They provide some of the best integration on the market. Supporting all the features of a product, not just a few.
