Since there are more than a half dozen communication technologies for smart devices in existence today, a number of entrepreneurs have decided to build home automation controllers called smart home hubs. Here are some key characteristics of a smart home hub:
SMART HUBS DEFINED
A smart home hub is best defined as an electronic bridge (a plastic box basically!), which links various off the- shelf Smart Home 3.0 devices together.
It’s basically the brains of your home that allows you to
wirelessly control a range of popular smart home devices, regardless of the protocol they use.
EASY INSTALLATION
Installation is typically pretty straightforward and involves either connecting the unit either over Wi-Fi or via a physical cable with your broadband router. From there, you simply follow the App prompts and set up the various smart devices you want to control and monitor.
SUPPORT FOR VARIOUS COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS
A smart home hub is able to speak multiple wireless radio languages. Since
these smart hubs are capable of supporting multiple modes of communications, consumers are able to mix and match smart devices from various vendors. Thereby, providing people with increased flexibility in their purchasing decisions and helping them achieve improve levels
1 APP!
Since most smart devices nowadays come with their own App, people are starting to suffer from ‘App fatigue’! To avoid the situation of having an app for every smart home device you install, Smart home hubs provide a single app to control and unify connected devices from multiple suppliers.
GEO-FENCING!
Although some ‘traditional’ home automation controllers support
geofencing, also known as geo sensing, smart home hubs vendors have put a particular focus on marketing this capability. The main benefit of geo sensing is that certain smart home devices are activated when you are within a certain distance of your home.
WEB CONNECTIVITY
In some cases, your smart home hub needs to be online and connected to
the Web for things to work correctly. If there is a loss of communications with the cloud, this could result in disruption to the functionality of your smart hub.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Smart home hubs are hardware devices that ‘smartify’ your family home.
Once your smart home automation hub has been selected, it’s time to examine the various options you have in terms of configuring your new smart home automation hub controller to support the different types of smart systems.
It’s great to learn that a smart home hub can have one app to control all your devices. My wife and I are wanting to upgrade our home’s security but we don’t want to become overwhelmed with all the devices. I’ll be sure to tell her that it will be easier to manage if we get a smart home hub.
Good to hear Rick, did you get around to installing some smart devices? Gerard