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This tiny box gives your older tech smart home superpowers – and it’s only $69

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This tiny box gives your older tech smart home superpowers – and it’s only $69

Home Assistant gets new equipment to battle planned obsolescence and abandoned cloud services.

Home Assistant is perhaps the most versatile smart home automation system of them all, thanks to the extreme customization power it offers. Today, a tiny, new box-shaped device is giving Home Assistant users a way to make their existing electronics smarter, rather than replacing them to keep up with the times.

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The Home Assistant Connect AUX-2 is a multi-purpose piece of hardware made by Nabu Casa, the company behind official Home Assistant hardware. The device brings together several connectivity options, including RS-232 serial for older TVs and other equipment, and the ability to connect older stereo systems and amplifiers to modern multi-room audio setups.

“The most sustainable device is the one you already own,” said Paulus Schoutsen, founder of Home Assistant and Nabu Casa. “No device should be left behind because it doesn’t have smart capabilities, or worst of all, its cloud services get turned off.

With the AUX-2, Home Assistant is joining the fight against planned obsolescence and abandoned cloud services.

Modern smart home systems have a major drawback: they exclude working electronics simply because they weren’t designed to integrate with today’s smart home platforms. This is the problem that the AUX-2 addresses.

Instead of buying a new stereo system with smart features, consumers can use the $69 AUX-2 to make the devices they already own smarter, more connected, and easier to control.



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