A comparison between some of the most used Smart Home hubs
The Smart Home industry raised the scales in 2020. With a new year comes new beginnings and a competitive approach between several smart home products, services and appliances. When looking to switch to the modern, technological way of living, a question of which hub to use to manage all the smart home devices has risen among the people. This article puts forth a comparison between some of the most used Smart Home hubs to connect your smart devices to and manage the automation of your home.
Samsung’s SmartThings stands as one of the best hubs out there. With WebCoRE, which allows the user to make complex automation controls, it is easily compatible with several smart home devices including Alexa and Google Nest, is user friendly and priced at an affordable rate. The only drawback in using the SmartThings hub is lag in the speed while loading the app and managing the controls. Furthermore, the upcoming changes in shifting the manufacturing of the hub to Aeotec and transitioning the interface from Groovy IDE to Rules API, the long term reliability of the product has become questionable.
Next thing on the list is Hubitat. Hubitat allows maximum automation and can be controlled locally without requiring internet connection as opposed to SmartThing’s cloud control. Hubitat lacks in the compatibility sector even as it allows the user to import WebCoRE, it is not compatible with Smart Life, Ikea buttons and Nest devices.
Following Hubitat is the Home Assistant. When it comes to automation and compatibility, Home Assistant is great and responds to controls fast. The only setback is that Home Assistant’s cloud requires money to use as the whole hub experience might be pricey. In addition to that, using Home Assistant can be a little complicated to figure out in the initial stages.
HomeKit is very easy to use and speedy whilst enabling all controls to be performed remotely. However, Apple’s Homekit is not compatible with several Smart devices without support from HomeBridge, and even then the automation of controls is less. Alternatively, the HomeSeer hub allows all controls to be done remotely making it respond fast to commands. It lets complex automation to be done but falls short on the compatibility sector and is expensive to use.
Amazon Echo is the last on the list. For a voice assistant, Alexa is a great choice. It is affordable and easy to use. However, it does not allow full automation like SmartThings or Home Assistant and is not compatible with all the smart devices out there. It is also semi-local where many controls will not be accessible without an internet connection.
These hubs are some of the best and most used Smart Home hubs. Each one corresponds to specific needs and requirements that a buyer should definitely look into while making their purchase to ensure their best Smart home experience.
Author: Jessica Sam
Information Source: youtube.com
Image Credits: theguardian.com
Add Comment