This smart home controller is literally a piece of wood

One of the fun parts of being a tech journalist for over a decade is that occasionally you get to watch a truly unique gadget go from concept to reality — and, eventually, into your living room. That’s the case with the Mui Board, a smart home controller built into a piece of wood.

The Mui was first demoed at CES in 2019, and I’ve seen it at several shows over the years, in various iterations, always with the promise that it would ship soon. Well, this year it did (in limited quantities!), and I finally got to try one out in my living room.

You could call the Mui Board an anti-smart display. A Raspberry Pi-based smart home controller with Matter support, it’s just a piece of wood on your wall when not in use. But when you touch its capacitive surface, glowing dot-matrix icons appear, letting you control your music and lighting, set timers, view messages, and access other information you might use a smart display for.

The idea is that technology should blend into your home — be calm, accessible, and integrated, not jarring or distracting. Mui is a Japanese term for being in harmony with nature, and the device is certified by the Calm Tech Institute. As someone surrounded by screens and smart displays in my home, I have long been intrigued by Mui’s alternative approach and was excited to try it out.

I’ve had the Mui Board second gen in my home for a few days now, and while I haven’t had a chance to fully put it through its paces, I’ve been impressed by its responsiveness, thoughtful design, and ambitious scope.

The second-gen model debuted in 2023 but only became available for purchase earlier this year on Mui and Indiegogo. At $999 (on sale for $799), the Mui Board still feels closer to a beautifully realized concept than a mass-market product. It’s hard to imagine many people spending a thousand dollars on a smart home controller — but for the right person, it’s undeniably delightful.

A simpler smart home controller

Created by Japan-based Mui Labs, the Mui Board comes in two colors: natural maple or dark cherry. I am testing the maple version and have mounted it on the wall in my living room, just above my sofa.

From there, I can reach up and tap it to see the time or weather, check what’s playing on my Sonos system, control my Hue lights, set a timer, and see the latest headlines from The Verge via a neat RSS feed feature.

It’s a simple interface with minimalist icons that offer more control than you might expect at first glance. You can dim and turn lights on and off (no color changing), adjust a thermostat’s temperature, mode, and fan speed, open and close curtains and locks, and turn smart plugs on and off. What’s different from other smart home controllers with touch interfaces is that there are no ads, no chatty voice assistant, and no bright, distracting display vying for my attention.

Out of the box, the Mui Board connects to Wi-Fi and can display the time and weather. You can set timers, alarms, and reminders, and send messages to other Mui boards or the Mui app. It has two small built-in speakers and a microphone for recording messages, and is powered by an included AC adapter.

Touching and drawing on the Mui Board is its best feature. It’s responsive and easy to use, and it has some delightful features. A small cat roams around the board and changes direction when you tap it. There’s a piano / drum mode that turns the board into a music machine, and you write messages on it by hand, not with a keyboard. It feels like technology you can play with.

For smart home control, the Mui Board supports Matter and integrates with Sonos, Philips Hue, LIFX, SwitchBot, Ecobee, and Google Calendar APIs, among others, plus several Japanese services, including Radiko and the Echonet smart home protocol.

Using the fairly simple Mui app, I connected the board to my Sonos system, and it displayed the title of the currently playing track, volume, and playback controls, and I could skip forward or back in my playlist.

As a Matter controller, it can set up and control supported Matter devices directly, without using Amazon, Google, Apple, or similar services. It works with lighting, plugs, and thermostats, with locks next on the roadmap.

It currently supports Matter over Wi-Fi, with Thread support planned. There’s no Thread radio onboard, so you’ll need a third-party border router. Lighting works best so far, while the other categories are still in limited testing.

I successfully added a Meross Matter Wi-Fi smart plug directly to the board but struggled to pair some Matter devices, such as my Nest thermostat, using Matter’s multi-admin feature. I plan to do more testing here.

I was able to connect my Hue lighting setup and could turn on and off all the lights or control each individually on the board. It was fairly slow, however, probably because I have a large Hue setup, and it was using the cloud API rather than a local connection. I really liked the Veil of Night feature that lets you draw a line on the board to set a timer that gradually dims the lighting.

Ultimately, the Mui Board is a big button / switch for controlling your smart home, with the benefit of icons to guide you to what you’re doing without a bright screen. As with any icon-based control, it takes a bit of learning to remember which icon does what, but you can customize the layout to put your most-used controls on the first screen and scroll through additional screens for more options.

While I love the natural, furniture-like feel, when the board is off, it slightly resembles a two-by-four mounted on the wall — as if my husband abandoned a DIY project halfway through. A rounded edge, more sculptural profile, or small shelf accessory would go a long way toward softening the look. Also, there’s the issue of what to do with the cable.

I installed the Mui in our living room, but after using it for a few days, I think the ideal place for this is in a bedroom, over a bedside table or headboard. That’s the room most people would like to keep screens out of, yet still want to control lights, locks, music, etc., without reaching for a phone or using voice.

I don’t see using Mui Board exclusively as a smart home controller; its software doesn’t feel quite there yet for creating scenes and automations. But as an interface to your smart home, it’s a breath of fresh air. And as a fun device for controlling music, setting timers, and playing the piano, it’s successful, if very, very expensive.

It’s been a slow burn to get the Mui Board to where it is today, and I’m intrigued to see where this thoughtful company takes its calm tech concept next. Mui Labs will be at CES again this year, where the company plans to debut a new well-being-focused sleep experience and “movement-based lighting control” for the Mui Board.

Photos and video by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge