Everything is getting smarter these days.
Whether it’s your TV, appliances, cleaning devices, or even your toilet, there are myriad ways to integrate your home with smart technology these days. Our cell phones have become proactive portals to worlds of control hence unknown, giving us a chance to bring virtual convenience to even the most menial of daily tasks.
The problems appear, however, when you start getting a bunch of these devices and realize that there’s no easy way to control all of them or get them to work together. This is where a smart hub comes in! This week on the blog, we are going to look at the added advantages a smart home hub can bring to your home -- as well as some of the existing limitations on this type of technology.
What is a Smart Home Hub?
Before we tell you why they are so great, we should probably spend some time explaining what exactly a smart home hub is in the first place.
The goal of a smart home hub is simple in practice, but tricky in practicality: It brings together all of your smart home devices and gives you the ability to control them through one central app. No more switching between apps or juggling 17 remotes or interfaces – with a smart home hub, everything you need to control your entire smart home is found in one easy place.
The tricky part here is that not all smart home devices use the same wireless protocols to “talk” to each other. This means that you’ll need to figure out which protocols your devices use, and then make sure that you get a smart home hub that plays nicely with all of your devices’ protocols.
What Are the Benefits of a Smart Home Hub?
You’ve probably already begun to put together some of the advantages and benefits that come from having a smart home hub.
First, it lets you bring all of your smart home devices together under one control system. It also gives you remote access, meaning you can control all of your devices through one app even when you aren’t at home.
It also means that your disparate smart home systems can now work together. Want to use a bunch of different smart lightbulbs? Go ahead. Want your smoke detector to unlock your smart locks when it senses a fire? A hub can help with that.
Of course, setting up some of these (and the ones we’ll talk about next) advanced smart home hub options can be a little tricky to set up. That’s where we come in! Give us a call or swing over today, and we’d be glad to chat about getting you all set up with a smart home hub.
Advanced Smart Home Hubbing
Want to really take your smart home hub to the next level? That’s where automations come in.
There’s a whole new world of opportunity when your smart devices can communicate and piggyback on each other. Leaving for work in the morning? Lock your doors on the way out, and your hub can also make your lights turn off and adjust your thermostat. The same works in reverse: When you open your garage door, your smart home can bring your house to life around you, turning on whichever devices you set to greet you.
You can also set up various scenes that control multiple devices at once, as well. A nighttime scene could close your smart blinds, dim the lights, and set your alarm for the morning. And nothing beats waking up just to have a “morning” theme start brewing your coffee, raising the blinds, turning on the morning news, and lighting your pathway to the bathroom and kitchen.
Are Smart Home Hubs Necessary?
Like most pieces of smart home tech, smart home hubs aren’t necessary, but they do add a lot of functionality and can also help make the lives of people with a lot of smart devices easier.
Another thing to keep in mind is that many smart speakers these days also act as hubs and can bring together a bunch of your devices. But, it’s worth remembering that these speakers are only going to work with certain devices or protocols too, so they might not be able to control every smart device that you want them to.
If you only have a few smart devices, or all of your devices are within the same family, then you probably don’t need a smart home hub. But if you are struggling and frustrated with trying to get your smart home tech to work nicely with each other, a hub is a great choice.
A smart home hub is a great way to step up your home technology game, but it isn’t an upgrade journey that you need to take yourself. Give us a call today and one of our experts will be glad to talk about how we can help you both get the smart technology you need and get it all set up and squared away.