Turning your home into a smart home doesn’t have to be so complicated. Yes, some companies could turn everything in your home into another piece of tech with complicated setups, but it’s not for everyone. Perhaps you are like most people who prefer the DIY route when it comes to smart home setups.
What Is A DIY Smart Home?
A DIY smart home involves installing smart devices, such as lights, speakers, cameras, doorbells and screens on your own. There is a plethora of smart home devices out there that support this kind of setup. You can also organize every smart install or device and control them all from a single point using a smart home hub.
Here are 5 Best smart home hubs you can buy in 2024; they are ranked based on usability, features, ease of integration and value for money.
Best Overall Smart Home Hub- The Echo Smart Home Hub by Amazon
Amazon’s echo plus is by far one of the most popular smart home hubs available in 2024. What is echo smart home hub? The echo hub is Amazon’s most popular smart hub that also comes with the Alexa AI assistant.
Using the integrated Zigbee hub, you can connect a wide array of smart devices to the hub. You can then use the echo smart home hub to voice control all these devices from a single point or multiple rooms if you have more than one hub. The hub also comes with an intercom feature that allows you to interlink multiple hubs and communicate between rooms.
The echo hub also beats all the other hubs in terms of usability. Setting your devices involves giving a single discover command in most cases, and you will be good to go. Be sure to check if the smart devices in your home are compatible with Zigbee before you purchase the echo hub.
Alternatively, you could also start by purchasing the echo hub and then finding devices that work with it. A majority of smart home devices out there do come with Zigbee support inbuilt.
Runners Up -Google Home Hub
Google has been making inroads into the smart home market with an array of devices that include speakers, doorbells, WI-FI hubs and many others. Their Google home hub is compatible with many smart devices from Google as well as third-party devices such as ring, Sonos, iRobot, among others.
Setting your devices to Google home is easy if you have an existing WI-FI network. All you need is to download the Home app to your tablet and add each device to your hub. After that, you will be able to give commands from the hub to control specific devices within your home network. For example, you could ask Google home to set the temperature on your connected Nest thermostat using a voice command.
Logitech Harmony Hub
Logitech is relatively new into the smart home space. However, their harmony hub comes loaded with features that make it an attractive option for DIY smart home buyers. The harmony hub integrates with over 270,000 smart devices from different manufacturers including Sonos, Apple tv, Sony, LIFX and Philips.
The harmony hub works by linking devices to your smartphone, tablet or a third-party speaker of your choice. It can be used as a go-between for your Google Home speaker, Siri or Alexa due to the number of devices it can control. The harmony hub can be installed on its own and controlled via smartphone.
As compared to other smart home hubs out there, Logitech’s Harmony hub integrates with many more devices and manufacturers. Those looking for a vendor-neutral smart home hub should consider the it.
SmartThings Hub by Samsung
Samsung’s latest smart home hub (third-gen) comes packed with more features and supports even more third-party smart devices. The SmartThings hub allows you to control all your smart devices including smart TVs, fridges, lights and sound systems from one point.
The SmartThings Hub is ideal for setups with devices from multiple vendors. It can support many protocols such as Zigbee, Z Wave and Cloud to cloud. You will be hard-pressed to find a smart device that is incompatible with the SmartThings Hub.
Final Words
This is by no means, an exhaustive list of smart home hubs you can buy for your DIY smart home project in 2024. However, they represent the finest and most fully-featured hubs available today. Have fun with your DIY home setup!
How to Set Up Google Home Mini to Tv
Related Resources