Contents tagged with Sensor
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Do I Need a Hub to Automate My Home?
A lot of people in the home automation field are suggesting that the home automation hub (e.g., SmartThings, Wink, Vera, etc.) is no longer necessary. With the plethora of WiFi devices available today that connect directly to an app on your phone, hubs are just an extra layer of complexity. Well for some use cases, that is probably true. For example, you would like to be able to turn on a lamp (or another device) while you are away from home. You could plug the lamp into a Wemo outlet and use the Wemo app to control the device from your phone. At this stage though, you haven't implemented home automation, you've implemented remote control. The Wemo app (and most apps for other WiFi-enabled devices) support simple automation such as adding timers or scheduling. However, you will typically be limited to using products from a single manufacturer. If you have devices from different manufacturers, you will most likely have to open multiple applications to control the devices. Most hubs (especially SmartThings with its active user community) support devices from multiple manufacturers and using different protocols including ZigBee, Z-Wave, and WiFi. If all of your devices are connected to your hub (even if they use different protocols) you will typically be able to control them from a single app, or even all at once using a store routine on your hub.