You used to have to put all your eggs in one basket. If you were setting up a smart home, you need one central device that was going to control everything. A smart home hub was how you were able to get the most out of your devices and make them function. There are still some devices that require a hub to work, which can be frustrating for those of us who don’t rely on one anymore.
If I can avoid those, I do. Having to plug in an extra piece of equipment just to get another device to work is, frankly, annoying. I have given up on devices because of this before. That made me realize that there really isn’t a need for a smart home hub these days. It is just another piece of equipment. I can get so much more out of my other devices, and my devices can get so much more out of each other. A smart home hub isn’t a necessity anymore and I’m not upset I’ve moved on from it.
Don’t Throw Away Your Old Smart TV: 8 Ways You Can Reuse It
Your smart TV may be old, but it still has plenty of life left in it.
There isn’t a real reason you need a traditional smart home hub
Other devices can control your home
Smart home technology has welcomed a lot of innovations in recent years. There are more and more smart home devices available each year, allowing you to turn almost any home into a smart one. You can automate daily routines with a few taps on your phone or tablet, making it easier than ever to rely on smart home technology.
This is why you really don’t need a smart home hub. Back in the day, smart home hubs would be able to control all of your devices from a centralized location. If you wanted to have a device carry out a task, this hub could do that for you. The real issue is that only the hub could do this and it was the only thing the hub could do.
Now there are smart home devices that can control other devices through voice commands, such as the above Amazon Echo Show 21. The smart display stands in for a smart home hub, meaning it can tell other devices what to do, help you set routines and automations through the Alexa app, and carry out complex tasks with voice commands. But it is also a smart speaker that can play music, answer and look up questions for you, stream your favorite shows, and even show you live security camera footage.
The smart home devices these days have the leg up because they can simply do more. Now, you don’t need a hub whose sole job is to relay messages from one device to another in order for them to be connected.
Matter, Thread, Zigbee, and Z-Wave provide your devices a network to thrive on
These protocols can have your devices synced
Devices previously could only connect wirelessly with each other via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. If you were setting up a smart home, you would need to connect all the devices to a hub and they would rely on that connection to be directed what to do next.
The devices within your smart home ecosystem weren’t connecting with each other and working together. They were all just working with the same hub. With protocols like Z-Wave, Zigbee, and Thread, these create low-power mesh networks that allow the devices to connect with one another.
The best part about these protocols and using Matter technology, which is what allows the devices to talk to one another, is that they are on a completely separate network than the Wi-Fi network. This means that when your power goes out, the devices can still be accessed and continue working together. This is arguably the worst part about a smart home hub, if it isn’t something like a Thread Border Router (which some smart home devices and smart home hubs are.)
A Thread Border Router acts as a bridge between your home network and Thread devices and it’s what connects all the devices. Thread Border Routers are on a different wavelength than Z-Wave and Zigbee, so you have to pay attention to which protocol your devices use.
Your phone can get you all that you need
Your voice can be just as powerful
Smart home hubs used to only work if you were near them and in your home. Nowadays, almost every device has its own app that you can control with your phone. Whether or not you like having to use manufacturer apps is up to you, as you can use a unified smart home ecosystem app like Google Home or Samsung SmartThings to control multiple devices.
But you no longe need to be physically in front of your hub to control other devices. You can do so much from your phone and controlling them all remotely makes having a smart home a lot simpler.
You can also control most devices with voice controls through something like a smart speaker. The built-in smart assistants handle all kinds of requests (some better than others.) But the point is that you can use your voice to control your devices with smart assistants from all kinds of devices. You don’t need a specific smart home hub to control everything, which can be a mistake to rely on. I use smart speakers all over my house to tell my devices what to do with voice commands. It’s an effective way to set up routines and automations for lights, sensors, cameras, and more.
Your home doesn’t need a central smart hub
In this day and age, there isn’t a need for a central smart home hub. There are advanced pieces of technology that allow your devices to communicate with one another. You can also communicate with them through your phone or with voice commands. You can spread your smart devices all around your home and they don’t even have to be the same manufacturer anymore. Make smart home technology easier on you by upgrading your smart home with more versatile devices rather than ones that are limited.
