Brilliant is back with a new subscription service, and it looks as if the smart switch specialist may finally be targeting the right smart home audience.

Now known as Brilliant NextGen, the San Mateo company has officially unveiled Brilliant Max, a new subscription service designed to take the hassle out of running a smart home.

If you’ve followed Brilliant over the years, you’ll know it’s been quite a turbulent journey.

The company originally made a name for itself with its premium in-wall smart home controllers, which combined touchscreen displays, built-in cameras and voice control into sleek replacements for traditional light switches.

They attracted plenty of attention from smart home enthusiasts, builders and luxury home installers before financial troubles saw the company effectively collapse in 2024.

However, rather than disappearing for good, Brilliant returned late last year after being acquired and recapitalized under the Brilliant NextGen banner.

Now it's making its first major play since that relaunch with a subscription service that shifts the focus from simply controlling devices to managing an entire smart home experience.

Brilliant Max is built around what the company calls “Modes”… pre-configured automations that handle common scenarios such as leaving the house or heading off on vacation.

Instead of spending hours building routines themselves, Brilliant says the system will automatically coordinate connected devices for its users based on these scenarios.

Away Mode and Vacation Mode are available at launch, while Home Mode and Night Mode are scheduled to arrive later.

Subscribers also get premium customer support, continuous system optimization, upgrade opportunities for older Brilliant Controls and a complimentary Shelly Bluetooth door and window sensor, with support for additional Shelly sensors to extend the platform's awareness throughout the home.

Having tested several Brilliant products over the years, I’ve always been impressed by the hardware. The touchscreen controls are genuinely premium, installation is straightforward, and they remain some of the best-looking smart home controllers you can buy.

The biggest drawback has never been the hardware itself but the compatibility.

That made it difficult to recommend as the center of every smart home, particularly for enthusiasts with devices from dozens of manufacturers.

That’s why this new direction therefore - hopefully - makes a lot of sense.

Rather than trying to compete as the most open smart home platform available, Brilliant appears to be focusing on homeowners who want a smart experience but don’t want to be the IT manager of their own homes.

It’s a similar approach to what the likes of Control4 and Crestron have built their brands on.

Whether consumers will embrace paying another monthly subscription remains to be seen, but if Brilliant NextGen can deliver on the promise of a smart home that simply works without constant tweaking, Brilliant Max could help carve out a very different niche from DIY-focused platforms.