Smart home automation is one of the greatest investments any homeowner can make. Home automation ensures that all your home functionalities run with ease while you’re enjoying all the comfort.
One of the most important smart devices you might need or not is the smart hub. A smart is ensures that your smart products from different manufacturers can work together from one central platform.
In simple terms, a smart hub acts as the brain and main controller of all your smart devices to achieve home automation. With a smart hub, you can control smart devices over any network you choose. It can be via Bluetooth, home Wi-Fi, Zigbee, or Z-Wave.
However, like most technologies and devices, a smart hub has its advantages and disadvantages to homeowners. They include;
Pros of a Smart Hub
Here are two key smart hub benefits
Centralized Automation
Arguably the best thing about owning a smart hub is that you get to unite all your smart devices under one platform. Regardless of the network, you’re using to connect all of them; you’ll be able to control them from one centralized app as per your preferences.
With a smart hub, your only task is to ensure that you get smart devices that are compatible with each other. For example, smart devices for your Homekit-powered smart home should bear the badge ‘Works with Apple Homekit.’
This applies to all the other smart devices too. A smart hub ensures that you also integrate all the settings among individual devices into the system. Using the smart hub app, you can get access to all these settings.
With this, you’ll be able to assign schedules for your smart hub to blend in with your daily routine and schedule with ease. You’ll also be able to control your smart devices remotely when you’re not home to give voice commands.
A single App For Your Smart Home Automation
Home automation is supposed to make your life easier in all regards. Running your smart devices shouldn’t at any point be hectic or a burden. Rather, it should be something that is simple, easy, and guarantees comfort to you and your entire household.
Without a smart hub, this might not be possible. This is because you’ll need to set up individual apps for all your smart devices to get them working. Whether you’re into technology or not, it might prove inconvenient to have tens of apps in your phone.
Cons of a Smart Hub
And here are two key downsides of smart hubs:
Smart Home Cybercrime
Even after switching to a smart home, cybercrime is still one issue you have to worry about. Every day, hackers are working on new methods to access people’s personal information for their own gains.
With a smart hub, all your devices are controlled from one central platform, which makes the work easier for hackers. With the slightest mishap or technical itch with any of the networks you might be using, it could prove very costly.
This is because setting up your smart devices requires giving out your Wi-Fi passwords or access to your accounts. When your home Wi-Fi is breached, the hackers will end up gaining access to tens of your smart devices.
To ensure that your network is very hard to breach, you need to come up with complex passwords and update your apps regularly. You can also use monitoring services for your main router so that your home Wi-Fi network is ever protected.
Added Expense to Your Smart Home
Most smart devices are already expensive enough for many homeowners. Adding another device to these expenses might prove very inconvenient for some people. While there are some cheap smart speakers with the same features as a smart home hub, they might not do everything for you.
These smart speakers often do not integrate well with Zigbee or Z-Wave networks. This means that you won’t integrate smart devices that use these networks into your smart home. Smart hubs, on the other hand, provide all the necessary features you need to run your smart home smoothly.
However, a good smart hub from a reliable manufacturer could end up costing you hundreds of dollars. This might not be affordable for some homeowners.
Final Thoughts
Before deciding on whether to get a smart hub for your home or not, it’s good to consider your needs. Having few smart devices can be convenient to run from different native apps.
However, a smart hub might prove to be a valuable investment if you have numerous smart devices. A smart hub will guarantee you more customized control of your smart devices to fit your lifestyle.