I've seen a few posts from 994 users asking about upgrading to eisy. There's another version of eisy hardware just released, read the link for the differences. There's also a new 994 upgrade path discount offer good through 11/21.

Universal Devices

Introducing eisy | home r2!

eISY, ev, iot, matter, node server, plugin, powerwall, smartgrid, storage, tesla

That's about as incremental as an upgrade gets. Still, nice to know.

Very much seems like MeLE stopped making the old hardware, so just pick and validate a new one. It's a big advantage of moving off of the ISY994 and later apu2 (Polisy) hardware, it's quite easy to move to a new platform as hardware ages.

The CPU is of course tons faster in IPC (the N150 has a new core design from Alder Lake), so that's a good thing, as is lower power consumption from the new process node.

Did notice a few things in the email information.

The new R2 has wi-fi 5.0 and Bluetooth 5.1 and the older wi-fi 6.0 and Bluetooth. May not make much difference for some while it may for others.

don't think i've ever been anywhere close to wifi 5/6 bandwidth limited, though 6 vs 5 might have some security benefits. i run wired, so don't really care. not sure what the eisy uses bluetooth for, aside from initial setup i guess, but i don't use audio on the eisy, and the major performance difference between BT 5.1 and 5.2 is apparently audio-focused. meh.

the power reduction is attractive... the v1 tends to run fairly warm to my touch. moving to this platform was probably good for hardware portability, but i never thought a boost in processing power over the 994 was... necessary for my needs, so any reduction in power, even if it's a reduction in MIPS or whatever (not the case here, i guess), is welcome.

so: cheaper, lower power hardware is the trend i like to see. unless someone explains why i'm wrong, i don't think bluetooth versions matter. i think i would have preferred wifi 6 over 5, but it'd depend on details i haven't tracked down, and i won't, because i view this device as infrastructure, and in my house, infrastructure is hard wired.

i don't see a compelling reason to "upgrade" from v1 to v2. if i get a chance to migrate my v1 into a family member's house, i'll take the opportunity then to move myself to v2.