Smart Hub and different vendors

ftm2008

I have an Nvidea shield and was looking to pick up a smartthings link to act as a smart hub in my home. I currently do not have any bulbs etc but do have an Echo and google mini
So reading up if i wanted to get some philips hue lighting it still requires a Philips hue bridge,
so little confused as i thought smartthings supported zigbee / z-wave so is philips using its own version of these protocols

guess i am trying to see what would be the best hub to get that would support more 3rd party devices and not get tied into 1 ecosystem

bk

From my experience, in order to get the best experience, you need to get the official hub for each ecosystem you buy into. Forget about trying to get an all in one hub, it is a unicorn!

It is well worth getting the Philips Hue hub for smart lighting IMO, it is the best around.

You can get SmartThings too if you want, Hue lights will work with it, but you still need the Hue hub. You can use SmartThings for other stuff too, motion sensors, switches etc. Though if I'm honest my SmartThings hubs isn't really doing much. It is my Hue hub that gets used constantly.

ftm2008

thanks ,, so looks like the Hue bridge is the one to go for, was just looking to utilise my shield
seems that Hue and Nest are in bed together too whereas as its unsupported by Smartthings
is there anything that smartthings has over philips?

not a fan of Samsung anyways

bk

ftm2008 wrote: »

thanks ,, so looks like the Hue bridge is the one to go for, was just looking to utilise my shield
seems that Hue and Nest are in bed together too whereas as its unsupported by Smartthings
is there anything that smartthings has over philips?

not a fan of Samsung anyways

Actually Hue does work with SmartThings, though you still need the Hue hub, but you can add your Hue account in SmartThings and then use the SmartThings app to control the Hue lights and to use those Hue lights in SmartTthings routines. I do this myself.

Again note you still need the Hue hub to do this.

One of the advantages of Hue is that it works with pretty much everything else out there, Nest, SmartThings, Google Home, Alexa, Apple Siri, Harmony, IFTTT, Stringify, etc. You name it and Hue works with it. Pretty the best integrated smart home product out there.

What SmartThings has over Hue is that Hue is for just smart lighting, while SmartThings can support lots of other things, Smart plugs, water leak detectors, cameras, etc.

They both have their place, it really depends on what you are trying to do and what you want.

ftm2008

ok getting clearer now
so hue been the best lighting system then you need the bridge
this bridge can support 3rd party devices like Innr but not a huge amount
then smartthings can support alot more devices such as doorbells and whatever and these can be 'registered' on the smartthings hub without the need for a hub from this provider

so really for now, a good option like you have is to have a Hue hub to register all your hue devices and a smartthings hub for everything else

smartthings could control all of the devices including Hue in one central management app and perform routines etc.

bk

Yes, that is about it.

Though I will say, you sort of end up getting a few hubs if you really get into HA, for instance I've also got a:
- A Netatmo Bridge for my Netatmo Thermostat
- A Logitech Harmony Hub/IR blaster
- The "hub" of my Yale Smart Security Alarm System
- An energenie hub for smart plugs (I don't recommend this one).

Then I've also a bunch of wifi devices that connect straight to your wifi and don't need a bridge/hub. For instance IP cameras, Nest Smoke alarm, Wifi plugs and sockets, etc.

All of the above can be integrated into SmartThings or at a higher level in services like Stringify or Google Home.

I'd say only get SmartThings if you have an actual need for it, maybe in the future.

ftm2008

Nice setup ,, Been a great help thanks