Why Do Some Smart Bulbs  Need A Hub And How Do You Pick The Right One?

Whether you’re considering upgrading to smart lighting but aren’t sure whether a smart hub is necessary, read on.

However, smart devices may be a bit of a maze, and purchasing without first researching might leave you with pricey, incompatible equipment. Let’s review some smart lighting fundamentals to assist you in making a good choice.

Is a smart hub required for smart lights? In a nutshell, maybe. The cost of a smart lighting system is determined by many factors, including the number of lights you wish to manage, the type of smart bulbs you choose, and your budget.

Some models of smart lightbulbs may be managed without a hub and instead through an app on a smartphone. Smart hub-controlled light bulbs are often less costly than Wi-Fi-enabled light bulbs.

Purpose of smart light bulbs.

To begin, smart light bulbs are LED lights connected to the internet and may be programmed and controlled remotely.

One of the most rapidly expanding segments of the smart home automation market is smart lighting. Integration technologies like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Zigbee allow smart lighting to be linked to automation systems.

Smart lights may be managed remotely through an app or a home automation hub, and their output can be customized for each bulb. Manufacturers may include features like speakers, cameras, and motion detection in smart bulbs thanks to their capacity to connect to the internet.

The smart lights give you pinpoint control over the light’s intensity and hue.

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of smart light bulbs on the market. Connected, remote-controlled light bulbs have made swapping out traditional incandescent bulbs simple.

As previously said, a smartphone, tablet, or home automation hub is required to monitor and control the smart lights.

Smart lightbulbs from LIFX

Some companies include their smart hubs, while others call for a bridge gateway to connect to the preexisting smart home system. Several smart light companies use many integration technologies to link your lights to your other smart home devices and systems.

Wink, Nest, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, and Apple HomeKit are all home automation systems and hubs that might be useful if you decide to equip your house with smart technology. Smart lights may be set to coordinate with other smart home devices when connected to home automation systems.

Can You Tell Me How to Manage My Smart Lights?

Ensure the app is straightforward since most smart lights may be managed with or without a smart hub. If you have many smart lights in your house or business, you’ll want an app that lets you turn them on and off, adjust the brightness, and change the colors of multiple bulbs at once.

Go for light bulbs compatible with your Google Home or Amazon Echo system if you want to use voice commands to turn them on and off. Of course, you may also manually manage your lights by turning on and off the switch.

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Functions of a Wi-Fi-Enabled Light Bulb

• No standard light bulb can compare to the smart bulb’s adaptability, control, and interaction. Among the many features and advantages are remote control and monitoring, safety, cost savings, and operational ease.
• You should consider smart bulbs if you often forget to turn off the lights or if you just want to save money on your electricity bill. If your smart light bulb supports geofencing, it may utilize your phone’s built-in GPS to determine when you’re in range and adjust its brightness accordingly.
• When your phone leaves a certain range from home, the lights may be programmed to turn off automatically. When you return, the lights may also come on automatically when your phone is within a certain range of them.
• The ability to alter the lighting’s hue is useful for setting the tone in various chambers. Many of them let you choose a “theme,” or predetermined atmosphere, to suit your needs. These themes might range from “Party theme” to “Romantic theme” to “Dinner theme” and beyond. Using the app’s theme settings, you may simultaneously change the hue and intensity of lighting in numerous rooms.
• If This Then That (IFTTT) allows you to connect your light bulbs to other smart home devices without using Apple’s HomeKit, Google Assistant, or Amazon’s Alexa. With IFTTT, you can set up your lights to react to motion, changes in light levels, phone alerts, and more.

LED Light Bulbs with Home Control Hubs

It’s quite annoying to purchase a smart bulb, install it, and then find out that some of its functionalities are inaccessible without a hub. Of course, you’ll have to shell out more cash for the hub and put through with yet another laborious setup procedure.

We wrote an extensive piece on the topic of home control centers. If you don’t have much time to read the whole article “What is a smart home hub, and how do you choose one?” here’s a summary:

A smart home hub may be a physical or virtual device that controls and communicates with the other smart home devices in a home automation system. In a smart home setup, a central hub will act as a translator for the different protocols used by the connected devices.

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Hub for Samsung SmartThings

A smart hub, for example, translates communications between devices with different wireless standards, such as a smartphone that doesn’t support Zigbee “talking” to a smart bulb that supports just Zigbee and no other protocols.

A smart home hub is essentially a hub that connects everything in your house.

The consolidated dashboard makes monitoring and managing all your smart automation systems easy. If you have smart lights, smart locks, a smart garage, smart speakers, smart plugs, and smart home assistants, all controlled by their apps, you can understand how tiresome it may become.

When you get close to your house using your phone, the smart home hub might trigger predetermined actions. You can automate tasks like opening gates and doors, controlling garage doors and front doors, turning on lights and heating, and more.

A smart hub also allows you to access and manage your home’s numerous systems from anywhere in the world, just from your smartphone.

Controlling automatic blinds and curtains, as well as lights, outlets, switches, door locks, thermostats, and windows, is just one of the many uses for a smart hub. Every day, more intelligent products enter the market, which can all be managed by a central hub.

Is a Hub Necessary for Smart Lights?

This is a crucial consideration when purchasing smart light bulbs. The settings for each smart bulb brand are unique. You’ll need a home automation hub to control some bulbs, such as the Philips Hue Smart bulbs from your smartphone. Therefore, a Philips Hue Bridge is included.

Up to 50 lights and other devices may be linked to and managed with the Philips Hue Bridge. Simply plug it in and use the Hue app to create unique lighting scenes and schedules.

Some smart bulbs can connect to your mobile device or tablet through Wi-Fi without requiring a hub. The LIFX line of smart light bulbs is a nice illustration of this.

Some models link through Bluetooth, which means you can only monitor and control them from anywhere within range of the Bluetooth connection.

You may not need to purchase a separate hub if you purchase a smart lighting system that already has its own hub or bridge. However, adding a smart hub may expand the functionality of your smart lights and potentially let you connect them to other smart home devices.

Without being connected and set to operate in a certain way via a central hub, smart security bulbs would not be able to activate when a motion detector detects motion at your entrance in the middle of the night.

various brands of smart lightbulbs may need you to use various hubs and apps. Using a specialized smart home hub may greatly simplify your smart lighting system’s operation and management.

App and smart FLUX-WIFI-7502 light bulb

If you already have many smart home devices or systems up and running, you may streamline your lighting and your whole smart home setup by investing in a dedicated smart home hub.

Even better, if you already have a smart home system with a dedicated hub, you can just purchase smart bulbs that are compatible with your system and plug them in.

While the proprietary lightbulb hubs may be ignored in favor of a specialized smart home hub, this is not the practice case. Instead of replacing the hubs that come with the smart lights, a dedicated smart home hub connects them all to a single system.

Smart bulbs or smart lighting systems may not operate as well if their proprietary hubs are thrown away.

The Samsung SmartThings Hub, Amazon Echo Dot Hub, Hubitat Elevation, Amazon Echo Plus, Google Home, Apple TV 4K, and Wink Hub 2 are just a few of the most popular standalone smart home hubs now available.

Start with a hub and suitable smart lights if you want to develop an active smart home in the future, and add more devices as your budget allows.

If you don’t want to construct a comprehensive smart home automation system or purchasing a hub is out of the question, you may get by without one.

Fortunately, standalone intelligent lighting systems are available, each with its own specialized hub or bridge. In addition, there are several hubless smart light bulbs available nowadays.

Several Wi-Fi-enabled light bulbs are on the market, such as the Philips Hue, Flux Wi-Fi Smart LED Bulb, LIFX Wi-Fi Smart Bulb, TP-Link Kasa Smart Light Bulb, and Xiaomi Yee Light.

Conclusion

Do smart lightbulbs work without a hub? In most cases, no. Some smart bulbs on the market don’t need a hub but connect to your existing Wi-Fi network.

However, you must purchase smart bulbs or smart bulb systems compatible with your current smart home hub to use a centralized control system.