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On the latest HomeKit Insider Podcast, Ryan Okimoto joins to talk about the latest home automation news, and the relaunch of Brilliant.
Ryan Okimoto — or Oki — is the Senior Director of Customer Engagement at Brilliant, and is our special guest this week on the show. He has a long history in tech hardware companies, spending time at Sonos and Eero before Brilliant.
Brilliant had faced a future of uncertainty after it was unable to meet its financial obligations. Despite this, the company website and its servers never went dark.
It wasn’t long after that Brilliant was back with a new set of owners dedicated to moving the company forward. That includes now launching their new second-gen smart panels.
In the news, more unannounced products leak from within Apple’s source code. We saw references to both an upcoming iPhone and the new smart home display in the betas of iOS 26 and iOS 18.6.
GE launched a new smart bulb this week. It’s a clear filament bulb that supports the full color spectrum.
It’s Matter-enabled with an A19 base, and 60W with 800 lumens of output. You can buy it now through Target for $17.99.
Nomad has finally brought to market a leather MagSafe wallet. It has integrated Find My tracking and can charge via MagSafe or Qi.
We talk about the new wallet as well as compare it to some of the other top wallets in the space, including ones from Bullstrap, Ridge, ESR, and more.
Finally, some bad news for the industry as Google TV was hit with layoffs in its 300 person workforce. Signify also said Hue products would get price increase as the tariff impact starts to be realized.
Brilliant’s death, and recovery
After the news, we jump into talking about Brilliant. Oki pulls back the curtain a bit about what happened with the closure, as well as how the company came back.
As Oki puts it, the original incarnation of the product tried to be everything to everyone and ultimately took too many resources to deliver. As the company went under, it prioritized keeping everything working for its customers.
New investors took ownership and were able to retain much of the talent, including Oki. The company is now laser-focused with a new brand strategy.
Part of that strategy is working tightly with installers. It’s a similar strategy many thermostat and smart shade companies also utilize.
We talk about what’s new on the second-gen Brilliant panels such as the faster processor and higher resolution display. The new model is a much more powerful device that makes a big difference in usability.
We end the show talking about Matter, and how the Brilliant panels could one day control even more devices in our home. While they currently support Apple Home as well as many other integrations, Matter is on the roadmap and could make a big difference.
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