A Tale Of Wink (A Smart Hub + Smart Devices); Part One

A Tale Of Wink (A Smart Hub + Smart Devices; Part One
Photo Credit: Jacob Krol

Over the summer, Wink was born and launched, a new smart home platform from the minds of Quirky, that would be sold through Home Depot. In fact it was endorsed by Home Depot and as their official home automation platform. The premise, was to make an easy way to make your home smart. Combine all of the platforms, whether it be Zigbee, Z-Wave, or WiFi, into one platform. Or rather one hub that combines all of the platforms and all of these smart devices and let’s them be controlled by one smart app. So, if we spell this out Wink equals a smart hub plus multiple smart devices and will make the user quite happy. This is Part One on our series on how we turned a home into a smart home, with almost no power tools and just a few plugs and connections.

To get started with the Wink platform, you get the Wink Hub. You can see our unboxing video of the Wink Hub above. The Hub is the brains of the system, it combines ZigBee, Z-Wave, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth all in to one platform. It is a simple, not too big, plastic device, that has a stand so it can stay vertical. It has a status light that doubles as a proprietary sensor. For instance you pair the hub with the Wink App on your smartphone via this sensor. Essentially, it can take all of these different wireless standards and understands them, allowing them to all play nice via the Wink platform. It gets rid of the confusing and cluttered wireless home platforms and makes it easy to use multiple standards in one central way. Plus, the Wink Hub pairs directly with the Wink App, your one stop shop for controlling all of the Wink compatible devices. Now, some of these devices need the Hub and other ones do not, but getting the Hub is the best way to start building the system. The Wink Hub is available from both Amazon and Home Depot and by itself will cost $49.99, but when your purchase it with other smart devices, the cost can be brought down dramatically.

The Wink mobile application is designed quite nicely, and is available on iOS and Android. Wink did a really good job of making an application that not only looks really nice, but it is intuitive and quite frankly just gets the job done. As, you can see in the screenshot above, it displays each device in a row, which you can customize to your liking. And to add a product, simply tap “add a product” and then you can choose from a list or scan the bar code of the smart device. The Wink Hub makes it incredibly easy to add the products, as it will find whatever smart device is broadcasting and will connect to it. Plus, it does this all wirelessly, as it does not need a hardwired connection via an ethernet port. Once you choose the product you are adding, it will give you step-by-step instructions with photos and videos on how to add the product. Overall, Wink did a great job in bringing all of these devices and the many different applications that they work with, all together into one application. Which is a great solution to de-cluttering the different ways of using thousands of applications to connect to them.

While there are many different smart products that work with Wink, in Part One, I will be highlighting the locks. As when you think of home automation or home security, smart locks usually come to mind. Our friends over at Wink sent us two smart locks for us to test out, the first being Schlage Touchscreen Deadbolt. It works as lock and still works with an actual key, as long having a touchscreen or rather LED back numbers. Traditionally, you could unlock it with either the keypad or with a key. With the Wink Hub, the Schlage connects to the Wink platform, allowing you to unlock or lock the door via the application. Or set up robots, that will lock it or unlock automatically. The robot could be if you shut off the light, all of the door locks will lock. While the Schlage is quite digital, those looking for a more tactile lock will look towards the Kwikset SmartCode 910 lock, and both of these are deadbolts. The Kwikset lock features a tactile set of numbers and a traditional key slot. Once again, via the Wink platform you can control the lock via the Wink app. Both of these smartlocks are available now and both have an MSRP of $199.

Another entrance to your home or household might be your garage door and as you might guessed there is a smart product and app for that! The Chamberlain MyQ Garage device allows you to wirelessly open, close, and check on your garage door. And via the Wink Hub it can become a part of the Wink platform. Depending on what model garage door you have, the setup can be quite nice. Like the other Wink compatible products, there are some nice setup guides built right into the applications. With the robots tool, you can have the garage door close, the lights shut off, the thermostat change, the door locks, and much more all with one tap. The MyQ Garage is available now and has an MSRP of $129.99.

This is Part One of our series on Wink, a truly unique platform that combines a smart hub with a bunch of smart devices, which equals out to the Wink Platform. I truly think that Wink is the best home automation platform out there, while this is just beginning look at just a few of their smart 3, the future is incredibly bright. They are de-cluttering the market and making all of the different platforms accessible via one application with the technology powered by the Wink Hub. You Can See All Of The Smart Products We Spoke About In This Piece And More Info On Wink, By Clicking Here.