The Best Smart Home Hubs Of 2022
The Google Nest Hub Max is a great smart display: it has a large 10-inch screen that you can use to watch YouTube and Netflix, find recipes, news and more. its two speakers are powerful; The 6.5MP camera is great for Google Duo video calls and even follows you around the room.
In terms of connectivity, it has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Thread, a new smart home networking protocol that Google has been trying to launch for several years. The Nest Hub Max display can be used to view live video from Google Assistant-compatible security cameras, video cameras and baby monitors, while on-screen controls let you adjust smart lighting levels. And there are almost as many Google Home-compatible home devices as there are devices that work with Alexa. However, as a smart home platform, Google Home does not have the same level of sophistication as Alexa or HomeKit.
Read our full Google Nest Hub Max review .
How to choose the best smart home hub for you
When choosing the smart home hub that best suits your needs, you should first ask yourself what you want to do with it and what you want to control. If you only have a set of smart bulbs, you probably don't need a smart home hub. However, if you have smart lighting and a smart lock and want the lights to turn on when the lock is opened at night, you may need a smart home hub.
Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee or Z-Wave?
Every smart home device uses wireless technology to communicate with others. Smaller devices like door and window sensors and motion detectors typically use Zigbee or Z-Wave because they require little power and don't need to transfer a lot of data. This is why these sensors can be so small; However, they must be connected to a bridge (like a smart home hub) if you want to connect them to the Internet. Traditionally, smart locks also use this technology, but more and more are switching to WLAN. You can read our guides on Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread and WeMo for a deeper dive.
Larger devices and those that can benefit from a stable power supply usually use Wi-Fi because it can transfer more data and doesn't require a bridge or hub. Devices in this category include home security cameras, smart thermostats, and video calling.
Think about the products you want to link. If everyone is connected to Wi-Fi, you can use a smart home hub like the Amazon Echo Dot and use the Alexa app to control everything. If you have other types of devices - such as Zigbee and Z-Wave - you will need to purchase a smart home hub that can receive these signals.
In the near future – hopefully by the end of 2022 – a new connectivity standard called Matter will soon be available. Backed by Amazon, Google and Apple, this protocol promises to make connecting smart home devices much easier. It would also potentially make many smart home devices available to HomeKit owners, which has been one of the challenges for Apple's smart home platform. Not all modern smart home devices support Matter. If you want to use it, you may have to buy new equipment.
How we test smart home hubs
We test every smart home hub by installing it in the real world (or rather, in our home). The first criterion is to determine how easy it is to deploy; those designed for novice smart home users should be easier to understand than more advanced smart home hubs.
We also consider the number of devices that can be connected to a smart home hub. Unless there are many things that can work with a hub, its usefulness is quite limited.
After that, the key to any smart home hub is how complex you can make the interactions between the various smart home devices. For example, while in the hub you can create rules based only on the time of day or when the command is spoken, it's quite limited. For example, you can do a lot more with the best smart home hubs. For example, to change their status depending on your location or what happens when another smart home device is turned on or off.
We look at how complex we can make these rules and procedures and how simple we can make them. Finally, we test the routines we've created to see how well they work.
What does a hub do in a smart home?
If you have a lot of smart home devices, you want to be able to control them from one place. A smart home hub can communicate with all these devices, so you can control everything from a single app. Alternatively, you can use a smart home hub to communicate between different smart home devices. For example, you can program your smart lights to turn on automatically when you unlock your smart lock or open your garage door.
Which smart hub works with Nest?
Nest Hub Max can be used to control all Nest products, e.g. B. Nest learning thermostat, Nest camera and Nest doorbell. If you're looking for something that works with Nest and other products, we recommend SmartThings, which lets you do a lot more than just Google Home.
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