What is a smart home hub?
So to begin any foray into the world of smart homes we first need to understand how we want the brains of the network to work. In the smart home context this is basically someplace which consolidates the inputs and outputs all your smart devices like light bulbs, sensors, etc and controls them based on a set of behaviours, schedules or triggers. For example you might want your smart home to turn on the lights and air conditioner when you get home, and this is where the brains of the system will detect when you enter the door and switch on those devices. There are basically two main options to choose from:
Get a smart home hub, this can be a Samsung SmartThings hub which runs on Z-wave, a Wink Hub, Fibaro Home Center, and so on, and have that act as the central hub for all your devices to connect to and to have the hub
Or
Use services such as IFTTT and Stringfy to "code" the behaviors you want.
Getting a hub would be the easiest method of getting this done as most hubs would feature a relatively friendly UI which would guide you through the process of setting the required behaviours. An example of a smart hub interface is the SmartThings interface below. The caveat to this is that the hubs cost a lot of money and the individual devices add additional costs as well, as of this writing a Fibaro Home Center would run you about S$900+ just for the hub.
The alternative is to use free services such as IFTTT and Stringy to code those same behaviours. I use the word code loosely as all these services have a relatively simple Graphical User Interface (GUI) that simplifies the process. You would still need to spend time code these behaviours and keeping track of them, but the main benefit would be the cost, it's free.
Which method you choose is dependent on how invested you are in the smart home concept. If your plan is to slowly build out the system and to spend as little money as possible then going the IFTTT and Stringify route would give the greatest flexibility with the lowest cost since individual components (e.g. light bulbs, switches) can be purchased on a ad hoc basis yet still work as a whole. If however money is no object and you just want to build it so that it "just works" then then hub is the best option since it will require the least amount of fiddling around with things and would be the easiest to setup.
Get a smart home hub, this can be a Samsung SmartThings hub which runs on Z-wave, a Wink Hub, Fibaro Home Center, and so on, and have that act as the central hub for all your devices to connect to and to have the hub
Or
Use services such as IFTTT and Stringfy to "code" the behaviors you want.
Getting a hub would be the easiest method of getting this done as most hubs would feature a relatively friendly UI which would guide you through the process of setting the required behaviours. An example of a smart hub interface is the SmartThings interface below. The caveat to this is that the hubs cost a lot of money and the individual devices add additional costs as well, as of this writing a Fibaro Home Center would run you about S$900+ just for the hub.
Image from https://blog.smartthings.com
The alternative is to use free services such as IFTTT and Stringy to code those same behaviours. I use the word code loosely as all these services have a relatively simple Graphical User Interface (GUI) that simplifies the process. You would still need to spend time code these behaviours and keeping track of them, but the main benefit would be the cost, it's free.
Sample of behaviours available from IFTTT
Sample of a flow in Stringfy
Which method you choose is dependent on how invested you are in the smart home concept. If your plan is to slowly build out the system and to spend as little money as possible then going the IFTTT and Stringify route would give the greatest flexibility with the lowest cost since individual components (e.g. light bulbs, switches) can be purchased on a ad hoc basis yet still work as a whole. If however money is no object and you just want to build it so that it "just works" then then hub is the best option since it will require the least amount of fiddling around with things and would be the easiest to setup.
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