This summer, we covered some really neat smart floodlights from Novostella that can be used to bring life to your yard. These were the BLink Smart LED Outdoor Flood Lights by Novostella. They pair to your Wi-Fi network and come together to be controlled using the Smart Life app. Allowing you to integrate your outdoor lighting with the rest of your smart home environment.
This can be taxing to many routers though depending on the number of lights you have. Many routers are designed to withstand a certain number of connected devices based on their internal hard capabilities. The fancier the router, the greater the devices it can withstand. Therefore, if have a lot of lights running around your home, this number can climb pretty quickly. Hence, the Novostella created a small hub to take that load on so your router doesn’t have to.
This is the Novostella Smart Wireless BT Mesh Hub, specifically designed for managing the BLink lights. It can handle up to 128 lights connected to it. That would be up to 128 lights your router doesn’t have to manage. Instead, the router only sees the hub as its own device. It’s the same benefit of running your smart home devices behind something like a SmartThings or Vera hub (only this hub focuses just on your BLink lights).
The hub does all the work of reaching out and keeping all of the lights connected, The hub then connects to the Smart Life app (available for both iOS and Android) and allows you to control them from there. Group them into separate zones around the home, or however else you’d like to manage them (ie, front yard vs backyard, or different groups as different colors, etc).
It’s an inexpensive way of taking the load off your router and managing everything from one device. You can buy it separately (if you already have BLink lights in your possession) or as a kit that also includes some lights to get you started (just make sure you select “4 Pack with Hub” in the options).
As mentioned, it is a small hub. You can see this in the image above as it is compared with a US quarter sitting next to it. About the same size as a typical RF blaster device that you’d add to your smart home setup (another something we’d recommend for any smart home).
It can be hidden virtually anywhere, as long as it is in range of both your router and the BLink lights it is managing.
Our Conclusion
We are big fans of the Smart Life app. It brings so many companies and devices together, allowing the devices to work with each other. So it is easy to gain our interest when a company adds support for this. These lights connect well to the network and so does the hub. Bringing everything together, you can do all sorts of things, allowing you to bring your yard to life.
From general lighting modes and schedules to custom effects for special occasions, Novostella really knows how to deliver.
To read more about the lights themselves, you can find our review of them here, along with links on where to find them.
| Available from the following retailers: / (or) / | |
| Our Rating | Average Price* $19.99 |
*Average price is based on the time this article was published
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