Wink Relay is $30 for 1 or $50 for 2, worth it?

Devices & Integrations
1

I received an email a few minuets ago about the Wink Relay being on sale today. $50 for two seems like a pretty good deal, but is it worth it for a dedicated SmartThings user? I’ve read some posts in the past about people integrating these into ST, but really haven’t seen much recently.

Just looking to see what everyone thinks.

Link: https://www.wink.com/products/wink-relay-touchscreen-controller/856908006183/

1 Like
2

I’ve definitely heard mixed results. … “rooting” them is definitely not easy, unfortunately.

The small screen doesn’t provide a lot of versatility (even with ActionTiles) and the local relays lose their “smartness” (as far as I know… unless you have a Wink Hub).

So I think most folks feel it is a better deal to get a 7" Tablet (Fire HD?) and somehow get power to it. That becomes a “simple” physical electrical project instead of software hacking.

3

I had one for a few weeks. To me it was just too slow to be useful. Great idea just needs a hardware refresh

1 Like
4

This is good feedback. Thank you!

1 Like
5

Here’s a hack video that we share on ActionTiles YouTube site.

6

Rooting isn’t necessary if you just want an ActionTiles access point without the Wink functionality; you just have to follow the steps documented elsewhere in the Relay forum (before all of the discussion on rooting) to install the necessary software. I find the speed is perfectly adequate if you’re not switching tasks; once an ActionTiles panel is up and running it isn’t noticeably slower than operating it on any other tablet. It may be small but that’s part of the appeal (and it looks built-in, not like a tablet somebody stuck to a wall).

The only annoying thing is the random but frequent need to use the ActionTiles ‘Reload’ function to kick it back into operation now and then (I don’t know what could be causing that; it never needed that periodic attention until a couple of months ago).

1 Like
7

Hmmm…

Maybe @625alex has some ideas regarding the change in stability on Wink Relay. We enhanced some watchdogging related to Media Tiles, but that has proven to be stable on mainstream devices.

8

Here’s my attempt at integrating and it works great with all of my use cases:

1 Like