Connected devices for the home.
Photo by Antonio Babuli on Pexels
Home Assistant Green, Homey Pro (2026), Homey Pro Mini, Hubitat C-8 Pro, Aqara Hub M3, Aeotec Smart Home Hub, Amazon Echo Hub and Apple TV 4K go head to head. We compare radio coverage, price, local control and setup difficulty to work out which hub belongs in which home.
Photo by Antonio Babuli on Pexels
A silent, frugal little box that turns Home Assistant into genuinely plug-and-play hardware — as long as you accept that it has no radios of its own and budget for USB dongles on top of the $199-$219 asking price.
Photo by Jakub Zerdzicki on Pexels
Homey's 2026 flagship hub crams seven radios and a genuinely local automation engine into one handsome cylinder, and it's the most painless way to unify a messy multi-protocol smart home — if you can stomach $449 and a single USB-C port.
Photo by HUUM │sauna heaters on Pexels
The Homey Pro Mini delivers local-first Matter, Thread and Zigbee control with no subscription for $199.99, and it's far friendlier to set up than Home Assistant — as long as you can live with Ethernet-only networking and a trimmed app list.
Photo by Digital Buggu on Pexels
Hubitat's C-8 Pro is a local-first smart home hub with a genuinely broad radio stack — Matter 1.5, Z-Wave 800 Long Range, Zigbee 3.0 and more — aimed at tinkerers who want automations that survive an internet outage. The $184.95 price and steep learning curve keep it out of beginner territory.
Photo by Jakub Zerdzicki on Pexels
Aqara's flagship hub is a genuinely capable Zigbee-to-Matter bridge and Thread border router with local automation and a handy IR blaster — but a patchy app, closed Zigbee ecosystem and no Z-Wave keep it from being the universal hub it looks like.
Photo by Jakub Zerdzicki on Pexels
Aeotec's SmartThings-licensed hub is the most protocol-agnostic box you can buy, bridging Zigbee, Z-Wave S2, Thread and Matter in one unit — but its cloud reliance, weak camera handling and murky migration story keep it from a clean win.
Photo by Anete Lusina on Pexels
Amazon's $179.99 wall-mounted control panel bundles every major smart home radio into one 8-inch touchscreen, undercutting professional systems by thousands — as long as you can live with occasional sluggishness and a stand that costs extra.
Photo by Jakub Zerdzicki on Pexels
The 128GB Ethernet version of Apple's 2022 streamer is the one to buy if you care about smart home duties, since it's the only Apple TV 4K with Thread and a wired port - though a HomePod mini does the same hub jobs for less.
Photo by Joppe Beurskens on Pexels
Aqara's U400 is the first smart lock with Ultra Wideband Apple Home Key, and the hands-free unlocking genuinely works — but you'll pay for it with a bulky, utilitarian look and a full deadbolt replacement install.
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels
Roborock's 2026 flagship pairs enormous 36,000Pa suction with a turret-free 80mm body and a climbing chassis that shrugs off thresholds — but at £1,129 it's priced for people who want the very best and nothing less.
Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels
Dreame's new X-series flagship cleans harder than almost anything else on the market, but $1,699.99 buys you a needy machine with a small bin, average battery range and at least one overstated hot-water claim.
We use strictly necessary cookies to run this site, and optional analytics cookies only with your consent.
