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The $100 Box That Turns 400,000 Homes Into a Power Plant
A former commodities trader noticed homeowners were flying blind on their own electricity. So he sold them a $100 box - and started wiring 400,000 basements into a grid-scale power plant.
Brilliant Smart Home
Brilliant Smart Home (Brilliant NextGen, Inc.) makes smart home control simple by replacing a wall of light switches with an in-wall touchscreen that runs lighting, climate, music, intercom, cameras, and smart devices from one panel and one app. Founded in 2015 in San Mateo, California, the company sells control panels, smart dimmer switches, and smart plugs to homeowners, home builders, and multifamily property managers. After a 2024 bankruptcy and acquisition by Almeida Strategic Investments, it relaunched as Brilliant NextGen with a builder-and-integrator focus and a second-generation Power over Ethernet platform.
Ryan Li
Ryan Li is the co-founder and CEO of Revert Technologies, a climate-tech company building AI-powered smart power adapters that hunt down 'phantom load' - the electricity devices waste while switched off. A chemical engineer turned energy operator, Li drilled deep-sea wells for Shell, designed green hydrogen plants, and ran Alibaba's US SMB business before building hardware in Maine that he describes as 'the easiest energy decision you'll ever make.' His company measures its own success in one unit: tons of CO2 removed.