Smart Home Company Inks Integration Deals; CEO Fears Tariff Unpredictability
A year after launching its first smart home product, Brilliant turned its sights on builders, CEO Aaron Emigh told us last week. At CEDIA, Brilliant bowed integration with Schlage and ButterflyMX, a smart intercom company, which says it’s being installed…
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in more than a third of new U.S. multifamily developments. Emigh said homebuilders want a smart home product that’s “part of the home” vs. a counter-sitting appliance. People “don’t necessarily want to have to carry an iPad from room to room to control their home,” he said. The company last year failed to get its controllers removed from a tariff line on components it sources from China under Trade Act Section 301 duties that took effect Sept. 24. “I’m not any more fond of them than I was then,” Emigh said, saying that as a startup, “you expect to face adversity here and there; you don’t expect that adversity to come from your own government.” Brilliant's moving manufacturing out of China because “it’s so hard to read the tea leaves here and understand where it’s all going,” Emigh said. On whether he’s concerned the new location could also be subject to future tariffs, he said, “Absolutely, that is a huge concern. The strange thing is, there’s nowhere in the world that’s safe."