Nabu Casa — the commercial side of the Open Home Foundation, which runs Home Assistant — just launched the Home Assistant Connect Aux-2, a multi-function box designed to help you bring more non-smart devices into your smart home. It’s part of Home Assistant’s ongoing efforts to become more user-friendly. And it’s working.
I’ve been testing the Aux-2 for a couple days and I’ve found it unsurprisingly useful and surprisingly easy to set up. The Aux-2 is a $69 box about the size of a deck of cards. It has 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Ethernet, USB-A, USB-C, a digital/analog audio jack, a Grove port for interfacing with peripherals like sensors, buttons, and LEDs, and a pair of RS-232 serial ports.
The sticker is nature’s way of saying “don’t use these ports unless you know what you’re doing.”
The rear of the device is simpler, with just a reset switch, USB-C, and Ethernet (which supports PoE).
It can bridge Bluetooth devices into your Home Assistant setup.
