{"id":51026,"date":"2026-11-12T09:34:50","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T08:34:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/12\/hands-on-with-home-assistants-new-smart-home-multi-tool\/"},"modified":"2026-11-12T09:34:50","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T08:34:50","slug":"hands-on-with-home-assistants-new-smart-home-multi-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/2026\/11\/12\/hands-on-with-home-assistants-new-smart-home-multi-tool\/","title":{"rendered":"Hands on with Home Assistant\u2019s new \u2018smart home multi-tool\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nabu Casa \u2014 the commercial side of the Open Home Foundation<\/a>, which runs Home Assistant \u2014 just launched the Home Assistant Connect Aux-2<\/a>, a multi-function box designed to help you bring more non-smart devices into your smart home. It\u2019s part of Home Assistant\u2019s ongoing efforts to become more user-friendly<\/a>. And it\u2019s working.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been testing the Aux-2 for a couple days and I\u2019ve found it unsurprisingly useful and surprisingly easy to set up. The Aux-2 is a $69 box<\/a> 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<\/a> for interfacing with peripherals like sensors, buttons, and LEDs<\/a>, and a pair of RS-232 serial ports.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The sticker is nature\u2019s way of saying \u201cdon\u2019t use these ports unless you know what you\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The rear of the device is simpler, with just a reset switch, USB-C, and Ethernet (which supports PoE).<\/em><\/p>\n

It can bridge Bluetooth devices into your Home Assistant setup.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00bb\u00a0More Info >>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nabu Casa \u2014 the commercial side of the Open Home Foundation, which runs Home Assistant \u2014 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\u2019s part of Home Assistant\u2019s ongoing efforts to become more user-friendly. And it\u2019s working. I\u2019ve been testing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":51027,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wpai_generated_summary":"","wpai_meta_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[36,332,1614,2258,405],"class_list":["post-51026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tech","tag-mixtv","tag-reviews","tag-smart-home","tag-smart-home-reviews","tag-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mixtv1.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}