In 2014, the Wink Connected Home Hub impressed many smart home owners with a small price and large amount of versatility. However, the smart hub fell short when it came to speed and ease of pairing devices. The newest generation, Wink Hub 2, released in October 2016, looks to improve on it’s pre-existing pitfalls. Wink 2 offers a lot more support and features bundled tightly in a slimmer design. Here’s a review of what’s new with Wink Hub 2.
A Faster Smart Home Hub
The original Wink Hub lacked a bit of speed. Offering only a 2.4GHz Wi-Fi network connection and 64MB of internal memory, Wink was a little sluggish. Wink 2 on the other hand, speeds things up with support for 5GHz Wi-Fi networks and 512MB of memory. These two new features, paired with a faster processor, allows for seamless and quicker smart home reactions. In addition, Wink 2 allows you to connect your hub to your home network through an added Ethernet port.
Added Device Support
Wink 2 still offers up it’s beloved versatility and ability to connect with nearly every smart home device. The hub supports common smart home protocols such as Zigbee, ZWave, Lutron Clear Connect, and Kidde. New to Wink 2 is it’s support of the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol. Having such protocol support allows homeowners to control an array of third-party devices. Wink 2 is compatible with most smart home devices such as thermostats, door locks, security cameras, garage door openers, window blinds, lighting systems, and more.
Smart Home Robots and Schedules
One of the cooler features introduced with Wink 2 is it’s IFTTT (If This Then That) channel. Thanks to the added memory and faster processor, Wink 2 allows users to set up robots and schedules for their smart home automation. Robots allow one event to trigger another. For example, when you unlock your entry door’s smart lock, you can have your entry way’s lights come on automatically. In contrast, schedules allow you to program your lights to turn on/off at a particular time in the day.
Added Security
The smart hub manufacturer has added what it calls industrial grade security and encryption. Every time a user runs the hub, it checks to see that it is being accessed with the Wink App. This added security measure helps ensure that your smart home devices are not being accessed or controlled by an outside hacker.
Slimmer Design
All of the additional features of Wink 2 are wrapped under a smaller, sleeker looking device. It’s upright and slender design not only looks sexy, but is functional as well. It was designed to project Wi-Fi and other channels of communication further to enhance connectivity. The device looks great on an entertainment center or bookshelf and it’s attractiveness can even make for great focal point in your smart home.
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