Smart-home hub manufacturer Wink is looking to take some out of the guesswork for consumers looking to dip their toes into the smart home market with a new starter kit. Dubbed Wink Bright, the $119 package includes a Wink Hub 2 that’s pre-paired with two Sylvania A19 dimmable LED smart bulbs.
Wink is also marking the release of version 6.0 of its mobile app by adding two new features it calls Home Sitter and Moonlight. Wink says its market research revealed that 44 percent of American who purchased a connected product were motivated by home safety concerns, so the new bundle and mobile app are designed to address that issue.
With the Wink Bright, homeowners need only to plug in the hub, install the mobile app, connect the hub to the internet, and screw in the light bulbs. The app will automatically discover the bulbs and the entire process should take less than two minutes, according to Wink. Home Sitter and Moonlight can be found in a new Services tab in the mobile app.
As its name implies, Home Sitter will make it look as though your home is occupied whenever you’re away by automatically creating a pattern of lights turning on and off, so that burglars watching your home will think someone is there. Wink says lights will never turn on during daylight hours, or at unusually early times in the morning when it’s unlikely anyone would be awake.
Moonlight ensures your home will always be well-lit by turning your smart lights on and off at predetermined times. By default, it will turn selected lights on at sunset and off at sunrise. The Wink Hub 2 also supports geo-fencing, so it can also be programmed to turn lights off when you leave the home and on when you return, relying on the GPS chip in your smartphone.
Wink is taking pre-orders for the Wink Bright now at Wink.com and HomeDepot.com. Moonlight and Home Sitter are included in the free Wink app version 6.0.