A smart home hub, sometimes also referred to as a "smart hub", "gateway'", "bridge", "controller" or "coordinator", is a control center/centre for a

smart home Smart or SMART may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Smart'' (Hey! Say! JUMP album), 2014 * Smart (Hotels.com), former mascot of Hotels.com * ''Smart'' (Sleeper album), 1995 debut album by Sleeper * '' SMart'', a children's television se ...

, and enables the components of a smart home to communicate and respond to each other via communication through a central point. The smart home hub can consist of dedicated

computer appliance A computer appliance is a home appliance with software or firmware that is specifically designed to provide a specific computing resource. Such devices became known as ''appliances'' because of the similarity in role or management to a home ap ...

software appliance A software appliance is a software application combined with just enough operating system (JeOS) to run optimally on industry-standard hardware (typically a server) or in a virtual machine. It is a software distribution or firmware that impleme ...

, or

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

running on computer hardware, and makes it possible to gather configuration,

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

and

monitoring Monitoring may refer to: Science and technology Biology and healthcare * Monitoring (medicine), the observation of a disease, condition or one or several medical parameters over time * Baby monitoring * Biomonitoring, of toxic chemical compounds, ...

of a smart house by communicating and controlling different

smart device A smart device is an electronic device, generally connected to other devices or networks via different wireless protocols (such as Bluetooth, Zigbee, near-field communication, Wi-Fi, LiFi, or 5G) that can operate to some extent interactively a ...

s that consist of for example

home appliance A home appliance, also referred to as a domestic appliance, an electric appliance or a household appliance, is a machine which assists in household functions such as cooking, cleaning and food preservation. Appliances are divided into three ...

s, sensors and

relay A relay Electromechanical relay schematic showing a control coil, four pairs of normally open and one pair of normally closed contacts An automotive-style miniature relay with the dust cover taken off A relay is an electrically operated switch ...

s or robots, many of which are commonly categorized under Internet of things. A smart home can contain one, several, or even no smart home hubs. When using several smart home hubs it is sometimes possible to connect them to each other. Some smart home hubs support a wider selection of components, while others are more specialized for controlling products within certain product groups or using certain wireless technologies (e.g.

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

Z-Wave Z-Wave is a wireless communications protocol used primarily for residential and commercial building automation. It is a mesh network using low-energy radio waves to communicate from device to device, allowing for wireless control of smart home de ...

, and/or

Zigbee Zigbee is an IEEE 802.15.4-based specification for a suite of high-level communication protocols used to create personal area networks with small, low-power digital radios, such as for home automation, medical device data collection, and o ...

). A

smart speaker A smart speaker is a type of loudspeaker and voice command device with an integrated virtual assistant that offers interactive actions and hands-free activation with the help of one "hot word" (or several "hot words"). Some smart speakers can a ...

with a

virtual assistant An intelligent virtual assistant (IVA) or intelligent personal assistant (IPA) is a software agent that can perform tasks or services for an individual based on commands or questions. The term " chatbot" is sometimes used to refer to virtua ...

can often be used for speech input to a smart home hub.

Open or closed source code

Smart home hubs can have software with open source code or use

proprietary software Proprietary software is software that is deemed within the free and open-source software to be non-free because its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner exercises a legal monopoly afforded by modern copyright and i ...

with closed

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...

, and independently of this the application programming interface can be public or closed. Some smart home hubs must run on proprietary hardware, while others (like for example

Home Assistant Home Assistant is a free and open-source software for home automation designed to be a central control system for smart home devices with a focus on local control and privacy. It can be accessed through a web-based user interface by using c ...

) can be installed on generic hardware (like for example a laptop or single-board computer with

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

Examples of commercial smart home hubs

Some examples of smart home hubs with closed source code are: *

Logitech Harmony Logitech Harmony is a line of remote controls and home automation products produced by Logitech. The line includes universal remote products designed for controlling the components of home theater systems (including televisions, set-top boxes, D ...

Hub *

SmartThings SmartThings Inc. is an American home automation company headquartered in Mountain View, California with a software development center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 2012, it focuses on the development of eponymous automation software and a ...

Hub *

Google Nest Google Nest is a line of smart home products including smart speakers, smart displays, streaming devices, thermostats, smoke detectors, routers and security systems including smart doorbells, cameras and smart locks. The Nest brand name was ...

Hub *

Amazon Echo Show Amazon Echo Show is a smart speaker that is part of the Amazon Echo line of products. Similarly to other devices in the family, it is designed around Amazon's virtual assistant Alexa, but additionally features a touchscreen display that can be ...

and

Amazon Echo Plus Amazon Echo, often shortened to Echo, is an American brand of smart speakers developed by Amazon. Echo devices connect to the voice-controlled intelligent personal assistant service ''Alexa'', which will respond when a user says "Alexa". Users m ...

which both integrates a Zigbee hub. * Apple

HomePod The HomePod is a smart speaker developed by Apple Inc. The HomePod was designed to work with the Apple Music subscription service. The HomePod was announced on June 5, 2017, at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. Its launch was later d ...

Some examples of smart home hubs based on free and open-source software are: *

OpenHAB open Home Automation Bus (openHAB) is an open source home automation software written in Java. It is deployed on premises and connects to devices and services from different vendors. As of 2019, close to 300 bindings are available as OSGi modules ...

Some examples of smart home hubs with closed source code, but an open application programming interface are: * Homey

Communication protocols

Various communication protocols can be used between smart home hubs and smart house components. The protocols can be grouped into wired and wireless technologies.

Wireless protocols

Some examples of wireless protocols commonly used in smart home hubs are: * 2,45 Ghz (

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wa ...

, Thread,

Matter In classical physics and general chemistry, matter is any substance that has mass and takes up space by having volume. All everyday objects that can be touched are ultimately composed of atoms, which are made up of interacting subatomic part ...

) *

(868 Mhz) * RF 868 (868 Mhz, various protocols) * RF 433 (433 Mhz, various protocols) *

Infrared light Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from arou ...

(430 THz; 697 nm)

Wired protocols

There are several cabled bus systems, some of which are built directly into electric panels. Some examples of wired protocols commonly used in smart home hubs are: * DALI, open standard for network-based lighting control in buildings, well suited for dimming. * KNX, older and well-established open standard for network-based control of lighting, sensors, HVAC, etc. in buildings. There is also a wireless extension of KNX called KNX-RF. * DMX, a standard for control of stage lighting, smoke machines and more, but also used to a certain extent for home automation due to the widespread use in professional stage equipment and good availability on the market * X10, widespread in older home automation equipment in the USA, but only used to a small extent in new installations. *

LonWorks LonWorks or Local Operating Network is an open standard (ISO/IEC 14908) for networking platforms specifically created to address the needs of control applications. The platform is built on a protocol created by Echelon Corporation for networking ...

, an open standard for networking platforms used for control applications of lighting and HVAC. *

MQTT MQTT (originally an initialism of MQ Telemetry Transport) is a lightweight, publish-subscribe, machine to machine network protocol for Message queue/Message queuing service. It is designed for connections with remote locations that have devices ...

, an open network protocol for

machine to machine Machine to machine (M2M) is direct communication between devices using any communications channel, including wired and wireless. Machine to machine communication can include industrial instrumentation, enabling a sensor or meter to communicate th ...

communication, particularly used for transmission of telemetry data in Internet of things components. *

BACnet BACnet is a communication protocol for building automation and control (BAC) networks that use the ASHRAE, ANSI, and ISO 16484-5 standards protocol. BACnet was designed to allow communication of building automation and control systems for applic ...

, an open protocol (ISO 16484-5) for information exchange between building automation systems, regardless of the particular building service they perform. Designed for applications such as automation and control of heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning control (HVAC), lighting control, access control, fire detection systems, and associated equipment. *

Modbus Modbus is a data communications protocol originally published by Modicon (now Schneider Electric) in 1979 for use with its programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Modbus has become a ''de facto'' standard communication protocol and is now a common ...

, an openly published and royalty free data communications protocol, especially popular in industrial environments. * Meter-Bus (M-Bus), an open standard for remote reading of consumption meters, e.g.

water Water (chemical formula ) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and Color of water, nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living ...

gas Gas is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and plasma). A pure gas may be made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon), elemental molecules made from one type of atom (e.g. oxygen), or ...

or electricity meters.

References

{{Home automation Home automation

Open or closed source code

Examples of commercial smart home hubs

Communication protocols

Wireless protocols

Wired protocols

See also

References