What Is A Smart Home Hub & Do Your Devices Need One?

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From security cameras that offer automatic cloud backups, to speakers you can control using your voice, there are several devices that can transform your house into a smart home. As these gadgets start to pile up, so do the number of apps on your phone. This is where smart hubs come in, and attempt to solve this mess by acting as a central point where all your smart devices converge.

The simplest way to understand what a smart home hub is by visualizing it as the brains of your smart home setup. Instead of directly connecting to your smartphone via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, you can route most smart devices to instead connect to a centralized hub, which in turn is connected to your home network via Ethernet or Wi-Fi. The biggest thing that a smart home hub solves is fragmentation, which is inevitable to avoid as you start collecting and setting up more devices for your house. A smart home hub facilitates connection to all these devices through a single access point.

There are also more than a handful of different protocols in the space of home automation. Modern smart devices may rely on Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, while others work over Zigbee or Z-Wave. A hub usually supports translation for all major protocols, which further streamlines connectivity. Additionally, since a smart home hub connects to your local network, it pulls you away from the reliance of using the cloud — strengthening security and improving speed and reliability.

Most modern smart devices work just fine over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and connect directly to your smartphone. Some popular products like the TP-Link Tapo Smart Light Bulb even explicitly mention that they don't require a hub to work. This works well for smaller scale setups that consist of fewer smart home devices. Conversely, certain products like motion sensors that rely on low-latency connectivity require a hub to function.

A smart home hub is also different from smart home ecosystem platforms, such as Google Home, Apple HomeKit, or Amazon Alexa. These are software services that let you manage connected devices using a single app and automate your home, but may still require certain products to be connected to third-party hubs. For example, Google Home may provide centralized control for a range of smart devices, but products that rely on Thread or Zigbee must be hooked up to a compatible Nest Hub that understands these protocols.

In our review of the 2023 Apple HomePod, we explored its support for Matter, which allows it to act as a smart home hub and controller. Amazon's Echo Hub supports Zigbee, Thread, Matter, and other protocols too. Smart home devices that require a hub usually have the condition mentioned on the product page. If a product works with Matter (via Thread or Wi-Fi) or Zigbee, you can still route it through a smart home hub to enjoy the same benefits of local control.