This smart home controller is literally a piece of wood

One of the nosy parts of being a tech journalist for complete a decade is that occasionally you get to watch a genuinely unsocial gadget spell from conception to reality — and, eventually, into your surviving room. That’s the lawsuit pinch the Mui Board, a smart location controller built into a portion of wood.

The Mui was first demoed astatine CES successful 2019, and I’ve seen it astatine respective shows complete the years, successful various iterations, ever pinch the committedness that it would vessel soon. Well, this twelvemonth it did (in constricted quantities!), and I yet sewage to effort 1 retired successful my surviving room.

You could telephone the Mui Board an anti-smart display. A Raspberry Pi-based smart location controller pinch Matter support, it’s conscionable a portion of wood connected your wall erstwhile not successful use. But erstwhile you touch its capacitive surface, glowing dot-matrix icons appear, letting you power your euphony and lighting, group timers, position messages, and entree different accusation you mightiness usage a smart show for.

The thought is that exertion should blend into your location — beryllium calm, accessible, and integrated, not jarring aliases distracting. Mui is simply a Japanese word for being successful harmony pinch nature, and the instrumentality is certified by the Calm Tech Institute. As personification surrounded by screens and smart displays successful my home, I person long been intrigued by Mui’s replacement attack and was excited to effort it out.

I’ve had the Mui Board 2nd gen successful my location for a fewer days now, and while I haven’t had a chance to afloat put it done its paces, I’ve been impressed by its responsiveness, thoughtful design, and eager scope.

The second-gen exemplary debuted successful 2023 but only became disposable for acquisition earlier this twelvemonth connected Mui and Indiegogo. At $999 (on waste for $799), the Mui Board still feels person to a beautifully realized conception than a mass-market product. It’s difficult to ideate galore group spending a 1000 dollars connected a smart location controller — but for the correct person, it’s undeniably delightful.

Created by Japan-based Mui Labs, the Mui Board comes successful 2 colors: earthy maple aliases acheronian cherry. I americium testing the maple type and person mounted it connected the wall successful my surviving room, conscionable supra my sofa.

From there, I tin scope up and pat it to spot the clip aliases weather, cheque what’s playing connected my Sonos system, power my Hue lights, group a timer, and spot the latest headlines from The Verge via a neat RSS provender feature.

It’s a elemental interface pinch minimalist icons that connection much power than you mightiness expect astatine first glance. You tin dim and move lights connected and disconnected (no colour changing), set a thermostat’s temperature, mode, and instrumentality speed, unfastened and adjacent curtains and locks, and move smart plugs connected and off. What’s different from different smart location controllers pinch touch interfaces is that location are nary ads, nary chatty sound assistant, and nary bright, distracting show vying for my attention.

Out of the box, the Mui Board connects to Wi-Fi and tin show the clip and weather. You tin group timers, alarms, and reminders, and nonstop messages to different Mui boards aliases the Mui app. It has 2 mini built-in speakers and a microphone for signaling messages, and is powered by an included AC adapter.

Touching and drafting connected the Mui Board is its champion feature. It’s responsive and easy to use, and it has immoderate delightful features. A mini feline roams astir the committee and changes guidance erstwhile you pat it. There’s a soft / drum mode that turns the committee into a euphony machine, and you constitute messages connected it by hand, not pinch a keyboard. It feels for illustration exertion you tin play with.

For smart location control, the Mui Board supports Matter and integrates pinch Sonos, Philips Hue, LIFX, SwitchBot, Ecobee, and Google Calendar APIs, among others, positive respective Japanese services, including Radiko and the Echonet smart location protocol.

Using the reasonably elemental Mui app, I connected the committee to my Sonos system, and it displayed the title of the presently playing track, volume, and playback controls, and I could skip guardant aliases backmost successful my playlist.

As a Matter controller, it tin group up and power supported Matter devices directly, without utilizing Amazon, Google, Apple, aliases akin services. It useful pinch lighting, plugs, and thermostats, pinch locks adjacent connected the roadmap.

It presently supports Matter complete Wi-Fi, pinch Thread support planned. There’s nary Thread power onboard, truthful you’ll request a third-party separator router. Lighting useful champion truthful far, while the different categories are still successful constricted testing.

I successfully added a Meross Matter Wi-Fi smart plug straight to the committee but struggled to brace immoderate Matter devices, specified arsenic my Nest thermostat, utilizing Matter’s multi-admin feature. I scheme to do much testing here.

I was capable to link my Hue lighting setup and could move connected and disconnected each the lights aliases power each individually connected the board. It was reasonably slow, however, astir apt because I person a ample Hue setup, and it was utilizing the unreality API alternatively than a section connection. I really liked the Veil of Night feature that lets you tie a statement connected the committee to group a timer that gradually dims the lighting.

Ultimately, the Mui Board is simply a large fastener / move for controlling your smart home, pinch the use of icons to guideline you to what you’re doing without a agleam screen. As pinch immoderate icon-based control, it takes a spot of learning to retrieve which icon does what, but you tin customize the layout to put your most-used controls connected the first surface and scroll done further screens for much options.

While I emotion the natural, furniture-like feel, erstwhile the committee is off, it somewhat resembles a two-by-four mounted connected the wall — arsenic if my hubby abandoned a DIY task halfway through. A rounded edge, much sculptural profile, aliases mini support accessory would spell a agelong measurement toward softening the look. Also, there’s the rumor of what to do pinch the cable.

I installed the Mui successful our surviving room, but aft utilizing it for a fewer days, I deliberation the perfect spot for this is successful a bedroom, complete a bedside array aliases headboard. That’s the room astir group would for illustration to support screens retired of, yet still want to power lights, locks, music, etc., without reaching for a telephone aliases utilizing voice.

I don’t spot utilizing Mui Board exclusively arsenic a smart location controller; its package doesn’t consciousness rather location yet for creating scenes and automations. But arsenic an interface to your smart home, it’s a activity of caller air. And arsenic a nosy instrumentality for controlling music, mounting timers, and playing the piano, it’s successful, if very, very expensive.

It’s been a slow pain to get the Mui Board to wherever it is today, and I’m intrigued to spot wherever this thoughtful institution takes its calm tech conception next. Mui Labs will beryllium astatine CES again this year, wherever the institution plans to debut a caller well-being-focused slumber experience and “movement-based lighting control” for the Mui Board.

Photos and video by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge