How to play your smart home device together

Smart home technology can often feel far away from smart. You want to turn on the lights in your living room, but your light bulbs are from one brand, and your smart lamp is from another, so you have to open two different apps to turn all the lights.

While this can be incredibly disappointing, the good news is that there are some steps that you can help your smart home devices to work more originally simultaneously.

Problem with smart home tech

In an ideal world, any smart home device you buy will work originally with all other equipment in your home without the need for any additional hardware. It does not matter which brand or product you were buying. However, it is far from reality.

Many smart home devices require their own ownership hubs. If you have smart home devices from different brands, you may need many different hubs, meaning that you quickly get out of the Ethernet port on your router. You are then forced to invest in a network switch so that you can plug all different hubs.

Worse, most smart devices have their own owned apps that you can use to control them. You may need to open an app to turn on your light, the other to open your blind, and the other to lock your front door.

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What is a network switch, and when do you need one?

A network switch is an inexpensive and simply upgrade your home internet, especially if you are ill with Wi-Fi.

Use a versatile smart home hub

Smart ecosystems like Alexa, Google Home and Apple Home allow you to connect equipment from many different brands and control them with the same app or with voice commands. It works using a device as a smart home hub that sends command to all your various smart home devices. For example, if you have an Amazon Eco, you can add your smart home device to the Alexa app and control the device from a wide range of different brands.

However, every smart home device will not work with every smart home ecosystem, which means that your video can work with Dorbel Alexa but not Apple Home, or vice versa. Some smart home devices can also communicate using methods that are not supported by your smart home hub. For example, your smart lights can communicate on Zigbee, which cannot be supported by your smart home hub.

Many smart speakers, such as Amazon Eco, Nest Hub, or Apple Homepod, can act as a smart home hub. You can also buy dedicated smart home hubs, such as AOTEC Smart Home Hub, which are designed to be compatible with a wide range of smart home devices.

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The best smart home hub of 2024

For uninterrupted integration and control of your associated devices, choose the best smart home hub for your home.

Choose your ecosystem wisely

If you want your smart home device play well together, then you should think carefully to which smart home ecosystem you go. Not every device works with every system, so you need to consider what products you want to use and which ecosystems are compatible with.

If you already own a lot of smart home devices, it makes sense to choose the option of a smart home system that is compatible with most of your devices. For example, Alexa and Google Homes support more equipment than Home Apple Homes, so they are more likely to fit with your current smart home tech.

If you are an apple fan and you are not already many smart home devices, then Apple Home is your best option. It works basically with apple devices and has many benefits that you do not get with Alexa or Google Home. If you use Android smartphone or tablet, however, then you have to choose a different option, as the Apple Home App is not available on these devices.

Once you choose your ecosystem, you need to make sure that any smart home devices you purchase in the future are compatible with that system. For example, if you choose the option of Apple Home, look for the equipment with the label “Apple Home” or explains it clearly that they are compatible with the Apple house in the product details.

Consider a system that works with almost every device

While many commercial smart home hubs work with different types of products, are usually major products that are not compatible. For example, Aeotec works with a wide selection of smart home hub tools, but it does not originally work with any hompit devices.

However, some solutions provide compatibility with incredibly detailed selection of devices in all major ecosystems. Open-source software projects such as openhab and home assistants include custom-maid integration that work with a stunning number of smart home products. It does not matter that a smart home device is compatible with Google Home, Alexa or Apple Home; As long as any integration is available, you will be able to add it to the system.

If home assistants like software are compatible with so many smart home devices, then why is not everyone using it? Well, the trade-off is that you need a device to run the home assistant, and the software comes with a large extent the learning state. With a system like Apple Home, you can scan only a QR code and then start controlling your equipment, but the home assistant is more complex to set.

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Ease of use is rectifying at all times. You can buy a dedicated home assistant smart home hub Home assistant greenWhich comes with software. You just have to connect it to your home network via Ethernet, plug into power supply, and start it. After the initial setup, it should automatically detect a smart home device on your home network, which you can add to your system.

Currently, however, it is still more complex than using a system like Alexa or Apple Home. If you are not a technology-lover, you may want to live with an established player.

Do not trust Wi-Fi

Another major problem with modern smart home devices is that a large number of them communicate on Wi-Fi. This makes sense, because there is no need for additional hubs; Your devices can communicate directly on your home network. However, it has some major downside.

First of all, if your smart home devices set a long way from your router, they can struggle to maintain a strong enough connection to work firmly. In addition, the more smart home devices you add to your home network, the more crowded traffic becomes. Many Wi-Fi smart home devices also require cloud connections to work properly, so if the Internet goes down, then your smart home does.

There are options like zigabi, which provide some benefits. The Zigbee device can create a Aries network, which means that each device can pass information for other Zigbee devices forward and back. If you have a smart home device at the distant end of your house, for example, you can place the device and other Zigbee devices between your zigby hub, which will forward the command and ensure that they reach your final device. Zigbee devices also use lower power than Wi-Fi devices, so many Zigbee smart home devices can run on the battery, which gives you more scope where you can give them space.

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Should you give strength to your smartthome with Wi-Fi? Or use Z-wave and zigbee devices? The answer is Murkier as much as it used to be.

Try Matter and Thread device

Big players in smart home technology know that the current situation of the game is not ideal. This is why many major companies including Amazon, Apple and Google established a joint initiative to create a smart home standard, which would allow the devices to communicate with each other regardless of the brand or ecosystem. Originally called home connected homes on IP (chip), the standard is now known as the case.

Since the substance devices are made using the same standard, they should work with any smart home hub that supports the substance. This means that you can control the device of a case with Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri, without worrying which ecosystem it supports.

Matter devices can communicate on Wi-Fi or Ethernet, but they can also communicate on threads. Thread is a wireless communication protocol designed keeping in mind the smart home devices. It is a Aries networking technique, which is similar to Zigbi, which means that the device in thread network can make each other forward and back, help the devices to stay connected on the edges of your network.

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The thing is that I am comfortable with smart homes finally

Watching “Matter” “works with smartths.”

To use substance devices on thread, you will need something to act as a thread border router, effectively the bridge between your home Wi-Fi network and thread network. Many smart home hubs, such as homepods mini or Amazon Eco (4th generation), can be used as a thread border router, allowing you to communicate with substance equipment on the thread.

While matters and threads are not yet correct, you can find that using the matter devices in your smart home causes less compatibility problems, and using the thread network reduces the problems of all your smart home devices on Wi-Fi.

While cases such as standard are a promising step towards a world where every smart home device works originally with each other, we are still a long way from that point. Software such as home assistants can help, but it is still not at the level where it is simple enough for general use. Hopefully, however, a time will come when smart technology will finally live up to its name.