Forget Siri — Use Nanoleaf's futuristic dodecahedron Remote to control your smart home

Nanoleaf, the creators of the exquisitely beautiful Aurora smart lighting art (as well as the unique smart bulbs One, Bloom, and Ivy) have unveiled at CES 2018 their latest addition to their geometric, futuristic home design products. The Remote is more than just the exact kind of object I imagined I'd someday have in the future, it's also a controller for your smart home devices.

The Remote is HomeKit-enabled, so you can link your Nanoleaf lights and all of your smart home devices to control scenes all in one place. You can assign a different scene for each face of the dodecahedron, like locking the front door, turning up the heater, or turning off all of the lights in the house, and then use the Remote to control those scenes. Position the face of the scene you want to trigger upward. You can also adjust the brightness of lights by turning the Remote clockwise or counter-clockwise. It's so cool.

Having a physical controller for all of your HomeKit-enabled devices is super cool. It means everyone in the house can control your smart home. They don't have to use an iPhone or have access to your Home app. It's just sitting there, waiting for anyone to use. It's more versatile than some kind of wall switch or plug because anything you can control with HomeKit can be assigned to one of the 12 faces of the Remote. It runs on AA batteries, so you don't have to worry about long-term battery degradation.

I'm excited by the versatility of the Remote, but I'm even more excited by what it looks like. It's such a cool and unusual-looking polygon. It's like some kind of futuristic glowglobe that I've only read about in Frank Herbert novels. It lights up and changes colors every time you rotate it to trigger a command. It sits there on your table, calling to your house guests who will no doubt ask for an explanation. Talk about a conversation piece!

The best part is that the Remote will retail for only $49.99. To put that into perspective, the Siri Remote for Apple TV costs $59 and it doesn't light up or look cool sitting on your coffee table. You're lucky if you can even find it.

The Remote will be available this spring from Nanoleaf. In the meantime, you might as well get Aurora so you can really wow your houseguests with your home of the future.