Not sure if anyone else is as old fashioned as me, and as bought a OTA TV antenna lately but being subscribed to ChannelMaster’s emails nets some interesting results sometimes.
I saw they’re releasing a new, coaxial power smart light. The idea being you can run power over coaxial to places that typical power may not be able to reach for some reason. I’ve not done a price comparison but i’m guessing coaxial is significantly cheaper than romex + an electrician.
What really caught my eye is that it’s homekit compatible. I’m curious to see if this will work with Hubitat’s homekit controller. I’d imagine it probably would.
Debating on buying one still but wanted to pass it along in case this is helpful for someone. I could see some good use cases for this.
I also got that email last week. I thought it was a bizarre entry into the home automation arena, at a premium price-point.
And the accompanying illustration describing how to power it also struck me as weird. If one has to run coax to a new location to power it, why not just run line voltage in a conduit?
I've got unused coax jacks in every room. I suppose one could run ethernet to them. But, how about emergency lighting powered by a battery in the basement?
Back in the day, which is not that long ago, there were emergency lights that were powered by phone lines (so ~50 VDC). Home Depot still carries a version of these:
I picked up a few of these phone powered night lights from Menards when they went on sale. One works fine, but the other had a loose wire and needs to have that wire re-soldered to the circuit board.
