If there’s an electrical appliance that exists, there’s a strong chance that you can also get a ‘smart’ version of it. Some of these products can be incredibly useful, such as smart bulbs and smart plugs. However, there’s one small problem: smart tech products from different brands don’t tend to play nicely together. With manufacturers using different communication protocols and proprietary apps, your smart doorbell may not talk to your smart display, even though this would be incredibly useful.
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Thankfully, there’s a way to integrate all your smart tech together, allowing you to control all of your smart home devices from one place. Even if your home gadgets are from different manufacturers and use different communication protocols, you can use a smart home hub to control all of your different devices, provided that they are compatible with the smart home hub that you choose.
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It’s very likely you already own a device you could use as a smart home hub. Even a low-cost speaker like the Echo Dot, though it may not be able to control all your devices, can double as a smart home hub.
If you want to bring all of your smart home tech under one roof, these are the best smart home hubs you can buy right now.
The best smart home hubs: Our top picks
Amazon Echo Hub
1. Best smart home hub overall
A smart home hub with touch and voice for total control
The Amazon Echo Hub is Amazon’s first dedicated smart home hub. With an 8-inch touch screen for physical control as well as Alexa built-in, you can control your smart home from one location. It can also allow you to easily view multiple camera feeds, and view your favorite photos when you’re not controlling your devices.
- Touch screen control
- Alexa voice control
- Zigbee, Matter, and Thread compatible
- Small 8-inch display
- No Z-Wave support
The Amazon Echo Hub is new on the scene, but it’s already jumped to the top of our picks for the best smart home hub. Unlike other Echo devices on this list, which are smart speakers or smart displays first-and-foremost, Amazon designed the Echo Hub specifically to be the central hub of your smart home. What’s more, although you can still control everything with your voice, the Echo Hub has a stronger focus on touch control than any other current Echo device. It’s incredibly satisfying to be able to turn off all the lights at home with a tap or two on the Echo Hub before walking out the front door.
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The Echo Hub is a connectivity powerhouse, with support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, as well as Zigbee, Sidewalk, Thread, and Matter. All it’s missing is Z-Wave support. With the Echo Hub, you can turn off the lights, open your smart blinds, or start your smart coffee maker with just a tap, or you can run an Alexa routine to do all three at once. You can also see multiple live streams from your security cameras and video doorbells. At some point in the near future, the Echo Hub will get support for Amazon Map View, allowing you to control your smart devices from a digital floor plan of your own home.
Amazon Echo (4th generation)
2. Best smart speaker home hub
A great smart speaker with Zigbee and a temperature sensor built-in.
Amazon has a history of making great but affordable smart speakers. The latest Amazon Echo can also act as your smart home hub, with Zigbee and Thread support built-in. You can control your smart home just by asking Alexa to turn off the lights.
- Zigbee built-in
- Works as Thread border router
- Alexa voice control
- Middling sound quality
- No display
- Alexa App isn’t the most user-friendly
You may already have a smart hub in your home without even realizing it. The Amazon Echo isn’t just a speaker with Alexa smarts. It’s also a smart hub in its own right, with the ability to control smart devices over Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and now Thread too, thanks to its built-in Thread border router functionality. This means you can use an Amazon Echo to control a wide range of devices, from Zigbee-compatible light bulbs to Thread smart plugs.
Of course, with Alexa built-in, the Amazon Echo also makes it easy to control smart home devices with your voice. You can even create routines in the Alexa app to control multiple smart home gadgets simultaneously. For example, when you say, “Alexa, good night” you can program the smart assitant to turn off all the lights, power down any smart plugs, and lock the front door. The 4th generation Echo even comes with a temperature sensor inside, so you can use it to automate actions like turning on the fans in your home.
Apple HomePod mini
3. Best smart home hub for HomeKit
The perfect smart home hub for HomeKit, with decent sound to boot.
If own a lot of HomeKit smart home tech, then the HomePod mini makes the perfect smart home hub. It can act as a Thread border router, and offers great sound for its size.
- Works as Thread border router
- Matter support
- Good sound for a small speaker
- Not compatible with Zigbee devices
- Siri still not the best voice assistant
- Doesn’t support Spotify
If you’re an Apple user, then you may already own a lot of HomeKit-compatible smart home accessories that you can control through the Home app on your iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. You don’t need a smart hub to control many HomeKit devices locally. For example, you can control Philips Hue lights from the Home app without any other equipment. However, if you want to control those devices remotely, you’ll need a hub that remains in your home to transmit the appropriate commands.
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The HomePod mini works as that smart hub. It can connect to HomeKit devices over Wi-Fi. The HomePod mini also doubles as a Thread border router and Matter controller, meaning it can communicate with Matter devices, such as the Nest Thermostat. Additionally, Apple’s speaker features built-in temperature and humidity sensors that can monitor the conditions inside the room you put the HomePod Mini in and trigger automations if the humidity or temperature reach specific values.
Of course, with the HomePod Mini, you can use Siri to control your smart devices with your voice, even if you don’t have your iPhone with you. It’s also a pretty solid-sounding speaker for the size, but if you’re looking for even better sound quality, the larger HomePod also works as a smart home hub, too.
Amazon Echo Show 10 (3rd Gen)
4. Best smart home hub with a screen
A 10-inch display that can follow you round the room, with Zigbee and Matter support.
If you own any smart cameras or a video doorbell, a smart hub with a screen is a great option, allowing you see a live video feed from those devices. The Echo Show 10 features Zigbee and Matter support, and the screen can follow you when you’re on a video call.
- 10-inch display
- Zigbee and Matter support
- Great for video calls
- Can’t be used as a Thread border router
- Expensive
- Not the most stylish design
If you own multiple security cameras or a single video doorbell, you can view the feeds from these devices on your phone, but that’s not always optimal or particularly convenient. That’s where a smart home hub with a screen can be a game changer. The Echo Show 10 is a great choice if you’re looking for a smart home hub with a built-in screen.
It can control Zigbee and Matter devices. However, unlike the newest Amazon Echo, the Show 10 can’t also function as a Thread border router. The 10-inch screen is ideal for monitoring video feeds from smart security cameras or video doorbells, and when you’re making calls on the Echo Show 10, the screen will even follow you around the room so you’re always in frame. And using Alexa, you can control everything with your voice. Commands such as “Alexa, show me the front door” will bring up the live video feed on your screen.
Samsung SmartThings Station
5. Best smart home hub for SmartThings
A great smart home hub for SmartThings, that can also charge your phone.
Samsung’s SmartThings Station is the perfect smart home hub if you own a lot of SmartThings-compatible kit. It supports Zigbee and Thread, and will even wirelessly charge your phone. There’s also a physical button for when voice commands just won’t cut it.
- Zigbee and Thread support
- Can be used as a wireless charger
- Physical button to trigger automations
- No Z-Wave
- Not the most stylish design
- SmartThings app isn’t the best
If you were all in on SmartThings as a smart home ecosystem, for a while there was no official hub you. Samsung stopped making the excellent SmartThings Hub, but you could still buy the Aeotec Smart Home Hub which was essentially the same thing with a different badge. But in 2023 Samsung released the new SmartThings Station hub, and it’s excellent.
The SmartThings Station has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee built-in. It also offers Matter support and can act as a Thread border router. It doesn’t include Z-Wave, however. If you have Z-Wave devices, you’ll need a smart home hub that supports this protocol, such as the next one our list.
There’s a physical button on the hub that you can use to run three different automations with a short press, long press, or double press, and you can even use the SmartThings Station as a wireless charger supporting up to 15W. Using the SmartThings app, you can create routines to control the wide range of compatible smart home products, and it works with voice assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant, too.
Hubitat Elevation
6. Best smart home hub for Z-Wave
A smart home hub with both Zigbee and Z-Wave support.
The Hubitat Elevation has built-in support for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Zigbee, and Z-Wave, making it compatible with a wide range of different smart home devices. You can also create complex automation through the app or web interface.
- Zigbee and Z-Wave support
- Can run complex automations
- Compatible with a wide range of devices
- Expensive
- Steep learning curve
Z-wave is yet another communication protocol used by some smart home devices. It’s a low-power wireless protocol that works in similar way to Zigbee. Each device in a Z-wave network can act as a repeater, allowing you to create a mesh network that can pass information back and forth. This is ideal for larger homes as it means even if devices are a long way from your Z-Wave hub, those devices can still communicate with one another. Z-Wave is also built on a quieter frequency than Wi-Fi, so you won’t have to worry about your smart home devices interfering with your home network.
The Hubitat Elevation not only offers Z-Wave support, allowing you to integrate your Z-wave devices into your smart home, but it also supports other major protocols too, including Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Matter, and Bluetooth. This means that you can control thousands of different devices from this hub, even if they don’t all speak the same language. There’s even support for Apple HomeKit so you an use the Hubitat Elevation to control your HomeKit products. Through the app or web interface, you can also create much more complex automations than is possible with many other systems, although there is more of a learning curve.
Google Nest Hub Max
7. Best Google smart home hub
A smart display with Thread built in that can monitor your sleep.
The Google Nest Hub Max is a great smart display with a 10-inch screen that can act as a Thread border router to control a range of smart home devices. You can stream your Nest Doorbell to the display, and even control it using gestures.
- 10-inch screen
- Motion-activated
- Thread built-in
- Expensive
- No Zigbee support
- Google Home app could be better
Google may not have quite the same level of supported devices as Alexa, but there is still a huge range of smart home products that will work with Google Assistant. For hands-free voice commands and remote control, you’re going to need a smart hub. The Google Nest Hub Max is a great option, as it features a 10-inch touchscreen display that allows you to see the live feed from your Nest Doorbell with a single voice command.
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The Google Nest Hub Max can connect to a smart home kit via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Matter, and can act as a Thread border router. The smaller Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) also has a Thread radio inside, but for some reason, you can’t currently use it. Hopefully, this should be rectified in a future update. The Google Nest Hub Max has some other nice features too, such as the ability to play or pause a song just by waving your hand, and can even monitor your sleep if you have one in your bedroom.
Apple TV 4K (2022)
8. Best smart home hub for streaming
A 4K streaming box that can act as your home hub and supports Thread.
The Apple TV 4K (2022) is a great streaming box in its own right, but also makes an excellent smart home hub for your HomeKit accessories. There’s Thread built into the 128GB model, and Matter support too.
- Thread support
- Wide range of streaming services
- Works with Apple Arcade and Apple Fitness
- Cheaper streaming boxes available
- 64GB model doesn’t support Thread
- No Zigbee support
The Apple TV 4K (2022) is a little different from the other hubs on this list, because its main purpose is to function as a video-streaming device. However, if you’re in a household with a lot of HomeKit-compatible smart tech, your Apple TV 4K (2022) can act as a smart home hub, allowing you to control those devices remotely, even if you’re on the other side of the planet. It’s also a great streaming box, with apps to stream popular services such as Apple TV+, Disney+, and Netflix, as well as allowing you to play Apple Arcade games, or to follow Apple Fitness+ workouts on the big screen.
The Apple TV 4K (2022) comes in two sizes, a 64GB version that doesn’t have an Ethernet port, and a 128GB version that does. The other key difference is that the 128GB model can act as a Thread border router, but the 64GB version can’t. Bizarrely, both models of the older Apple TV 4K (2021) work as Thread border routers, so if you have Thread devices, you might want to opt for one of these cheaper models instead. Matter devices will still work regardless of which model you buy.
Aqara Smart Hub M2
9. Best value smart home hub
A low-cost smart home hub with Zigbee support and an IR transmitter.
$60 $64 Save $4
A low-cost Zigbee smart hub that also has an IR transmitter to control devices that use an IR remote. There’s no microphone, but you can integrate with voice assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant using other devices.
- Zigbee support
- IR transmitter
- Great price
- No Thread support
- No voice control built in
- Doesn’t support 5GHz Wi-Fi
If you’d rather not have to pay through the nose for an all-singing, all-dancing device to act as your smart home hub, there are more economical options available. Aqara makes a wide range of affordable smart home devices, from motion sensors, water leak sensors, and temperature and humidity sensors, to video cameras and even smart pet feeders. The majority of these devices communicate over Zigbee. The benefit of Zigbee smart home devices is that they form a mesh network; each device can pass on commands or data to other devices, ensuring that you never have devices that are too far out of range.
In order to take advantage of Zigbee, however, you’ll need a Zigbee hub to communicate with your devices. The Aqara Smart Hub M2 is a Zigbee smart home hub that plugs into your router. Commands from voice assistants such as Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa are then translated by the hub into Zigbee commands that are sent to your devices. There’s Bluetooth connectivity, and a very useful infrared (IR) transmitter. This allows you to send IR signals to otherwise dumb devices. If you have an old TV, for example, you can power it on and off using the Aqara Smart Hub M2 to send the same signals that your TV remote would send.
Home Assistant Yellow
10. Most versatile smart home hub
Home Assistant is software that allows you to create your own bespoke smart home hub.
If you truly want to make your home smart, then Home Assistant is one of the most powerful options out there. It’s software that allows you to make your own smart home hub on anything from a Raspberry Pi to an old laptop. With a huge number of integrations, you have incredible control but there is a steep learning curve.
- Set up your own smart home hub
- Huge number of integrations
- Create powerful automations
- Steep learning curve
- Only one pre-produced hub available
- Overkill for many users
This smart hub is very different from the others on this list. That’s because although it’s possible to purchase Home Assistant Yellow, a ready-made smart home hub for Home Assistant. In reality, Home Assistant isn’t a smart home hub at all: it’s the software that you need to run your own smart hub. The software can be run on a wide variety of devices, from a cheap Raspberry Pi to a Mac or PC. The beauty of Home Assistant is that you can create the exact system that you want; if you have a lot of Zigbee devices, for example, add a Zigbee dongle to your Home Assistant hub, and you can control them all. Prefer Z-Wave? Add that dongle instead.
The power of Home Assistant is that it works with an enormous range of smart home tech, with more than 2,500 official integrations, and many, many more unofficial ones. This allows you to integrate almost anything you can imagine into your smart home; if it’s smart, the chances are that there’s an integration for it. You can then build highly complex automations that allow all of your smart home devices to work together. The options are almost limitless, but there is a caveat: the system comes with a pretty steep learning curve, so you’ll need a reasonable level of tech know-how. If you’re willing to put in the time, however, Home Assistant can make your home truly smart.
The bottom line: What is the best smart home hub?
Amazon Echo devices already made great smart home hubs in their own right, but the new Amazon Echo Hub is the first time that the company has produced a device that’s designed from the ground up to be the hub of your smart home. Voice control with Alexa has always been great, but sometimes you just want to give something a quick tap without needing to speak out loud. The Echo Hub gives you the best of both worlds, allowing you to control all of your smart home devices with touch controls or with your voice.
Amazon Echo Hub
Editor’s Choice
Control your smart home with touch and voice.
If you’re looking for a low-cost alternative, then the Aqara Smart Hub M2 is packed with features at an excellent price. You can control devices over Wi-Fi and Zigbee and can even control some dumb devices using the built-in IR transmitter.
How I chose the best smart home hubs
When selecting the best smart home hubs, I wanted to ensure that there were options that would work with the most popular smart home ecosystems, such as Apple HomeKit, Alexa, and SmartThings. I also wanted to include hubs that covered the most popular communication methods, including Wi-Fi, Zigbee, and Thread. I made sure that there were a range of price points, from budget options to more expensive smart speakers with built-in displays. Finally, I included Home Assistant in the mix because although it’s not a smart home hub in its own right, in my opinion, it’s one of the most powerful ways to make your home smart; my own smart home is controlled by Home Assistant running on a Raspberry Pi.
What should you look for when buying the best smart home hub?
There are a number of considerations when choosing a smart home hub for your home. Here are some of the key questions you’ll need to keep in mind.
What devices does my smart home hub support?
Building a smart home is far more frustrating than it should be, because there’s still no real overarching set of rules how smart home devices should operate. Each company has its own set of protocols, meaning that very few smart home devices will play nicely with each other. A smart home hub can help, allowing you to connect a range of smart home devices from different brands, but not every smart home device will work with every smart home hub.
The Amazon Echo was the first smart speaker to really gain critical mass, so understandably there are a lot of smart home devices that will work with Alexa. This isn’t the case for every smart home device, however. If you’re looking for a smart home hub, you should look at the kit you already own, and choose a hub that clearly states that it will work with what you already have as a jumping off point in your research.
What voice assistants will work with my smart hub?
Many smart home hubs have voice assistants built in, such as the Amazon Echo, Google Nest Hub Max, or Apple HomePod Mini. Once again, not every smart home hub will work with every voice assistant, however. Some smart home hubs also don’t have any built-in microphones, such as the Aqara Smart Hub M2, so if you want to use voice commands, you’ll need to use your phone or a separate smart speaker. If you have a preferred voice assistant, make sure it’s compatible with your smart home hub of choice.
What communication protocols do I need?
There are numerous ways for smart home devices to communicate, from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to Zigbee and Thread. Not every smart home hub can communicate over all of these methods, however. If you only want to control Wi-Fi smart plugs and light bulbs, then this isn’t an issue, but if you have Zigbee motion detectors, or Thread lighting, then you’ll need a smart home hub that’s compatible. Matter and Thread are an effort to try to introduce a common language for smart home devices, so choosing a smart home hub that supports Matter and Thread may offer you some level of future-proofing. If you’re using Z-wave smart tech, then you’ll need to find a smart home hub that supports Z-wave, such as the Hubitat Elevation.
What else can my smart home hub do?
Many of the smart home hubs on this list do more than just communicate with your smart home devices. Choosing one may also come down to the other features that you’re looking for. You might want a new smart speaker, or a smart display, or you might be looking for a new streaming device. If so, you can find one with a smart home hub inside that will give you the best of both worlds.
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