CES 2016

Anyone who ever writes about consumer electronics—especially at shows like CES and CEDIA—runs the risk of praising a really cool product that, unfortunately, never sees the light of day. (It’s also the curse of anyone who covers Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns.) So I’ll begin this post with the following caveat: I have no idea whether or not the folks at Senic in Germany will be able to bring their Nuimo “Universal Control for Your Smart Home” to life as a real, honest-to-goodness product. But I sure as hell hope they do.

Senic says, “We built Nuimo because we believe that technology should be seamless.” And Nuimo is seamless. It’s a super-smooth aluminum ring with over a thousand unique points along the inner edge (for ultra-precise control) and a dual-layer acrylic touch surface. The surface is both scratch-resistant and provides visual feedback on what the user is controlling using a 9 x 9 LED matrix. You can think of Nuimo as the equivalent of a Nest thermostat that controls the rest of your smart home.

I had the chance to play with a Nuimo sample at Senic’s booth, and the fit and finish of the controller is spectacular, rivaling products produced by Bang & Olufsen, Nest, and Apple. The precision of the outer ring as it moves back and forth, for example, is smoother than the volume knob controls on many multi-thousand dollar AV components.

Senic says Nuimo has “dozens of plug-and-play integrations that give you control right out of the box, with new devices and applications being added daily.” Those integrations currently include Sonos, Philips Hue, Nest, Apple TV, August locks, and more. The list is expected to grow since Nuimo is built on an open platform, and the company encourages third-party applications. The accuracy of the Nuimo control ring is so good that integrations have even been created for use with Adobe photo editing software.

Nuimo incorporates Bluetooth LE and includes a Lithium Polymer batter that is said to last up to four months before needing to be recharged. The Senic folks in Germany say they expect to be shipping units to new purchasers sometime in March of 2016. The pre-order price is $159. Once shipping commences, the regular price will be $199.