How to Make Your Home Smarter Without Buying a Hub or Smart Speaker

When people ask me which smart home device they should buy first, I usually ask smart speaker. Its convenience is undeniable, especially when setting timers, listening to music and quickly converting measured values ​​into kitchen. You can also find smart speakers for every budget.

But the killer feature is the huge ecosystem of compatible devices that work easily with Alexa and Google. Smart speakers make great smart hubs. Or is there something else going on?

Alexa and Google Home go beyond smart speakers

Smart speakers are the public face of Alexa, Google Home, and Apple Home, but they’re surprisingly small parts of their respective smart home ecosystems. They may look like smart hubs, but they’re voice input devices more akin to keyboards than CPUs.

In reality, many major smart home platforms rely heavily on the cloud, aside from a few local integrations like Bluetooth, Matter, Thread, Zigbee, and Z-Wave, including smart hubs like Smart Things and Ezlo. It all comes down to the popularity and ease of use of Wi-Fi.

If a smart device uses Wifichances are that almost every action, schedule, routine, notification, and setting relies on a central server instead of your phone.

The vocal proponents of the local smart home, such as the Home Assistant crowd, would rightly point out that cloud-based smart home integrations are useless without an internet connection. However, the ubiquity of the internet means that you can use the cloud to create a smart home without smart speakers or smart hubs.

Now that we’ve explained that, here’s the recipe for speakerless smart homes:

• Smart home devices with access to an internet connection (direct via WiFi or indirectly via a smart hub)
• Login details for two compatible smart home platforms
• An app that acts as a virtual smart hub: Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, SmartThings, IFTTT, etc.

Get to know Alexa without Echo, thanks to online account linking

I’ll limit my examples to Alexa, but you can use a similar process for other smart home platforms.

1. Download the Amazon Alexa app and log in with your Amazon account.
   
2. Answer “no” when asked if you want to set up a device.
3. Follow the instructions to complete the app setup.
4. Set up the smart home device you want to connect to Alexa, if you haven’t already.
5. You can link accounts through the Alexa app or the other device’s app. (If you use Alexa, search for the brand of the device, e.g. Govee or Hubspace. If you use the other app, there is often an “integrations” or “smart home” menu where you can select Alexa from the list.)
6. Sometimes the account linking screen will ask a few questions before proceeding with the linking authorization. You won’t need to enter any credentials as long as you sign in to Alexa and the target app beforehand, but it may still ask for a password.
7. Once authorized, your paired products will appear in Alexa’s Devices tab, where you can set up groups, rooms, and automation routines in your smart home system.
8. Repeat steps 4 through 7 for additional smart home accounts.

Regardless of whether you use a smart speaker, you shouldn’t expect the full functionality of the other device’s app to be ported over to Alexa. This depends on how deep the manufacturer decides to make its Alexa integration.

For example, when I pair my Hubspace light strip with Alexa, I get basic control over the colors and brightness, but no access to lighting scenes or modes. Alexa, on the other hand, supports almost every feature and mode on my Govee light stripWhile there is no option to create custom lighting scenes with Alexa, it can see the custom scenes I created with the Govee app.

In any case, you can now control your connected devices through the Alexa app instead of having to switch between multiple apps.

What do you lose if you skip a smart speaker?

The obvious downside to relying on a server to connect smart home devices is that you lose the control and automation of mobile apps when the internet goes down. While it’s true that a smart speaker (or smart hub) has this weakness too, it can offer more functionality than a mobile app. If a brand stops supporting your smart home app, you may have to go back to their app.

At first glance, a smart speaker might seem like the only way to use voice control in your smart home, but it’s easy to install Alexa and Google Assistant on modern smartphones to compensate. (Apple is an exception, as Siri and Apple Home are exclusive to Apple devices.) Still, using a voice assistant on your phone isn’t as convenient as a dedicated smart speaker.

The other benefit you’ll give up is a smart speaker’s ability to automatically recognize new devices. An Echo Dot or Nest Mini can check for compatible devices on the same Wi-Fi network and suggest adding them to your smart home system. This cuts down on installation time and simplifies the process of building your smart home.

Smart speakers with built-in smart hub technology still have their place

Despite the freedom of choice that smart speakers bring to controlling a smart home, models with built-in smart home radios are still useful. The Amazon Echo (4th Gen) supports Zigbee and Thread devices that would otherwise require a smart hub. The same goes for the latest Apple HomePod and Google Nest Hub models, which use Thread technology to connect to compatible devices.

Built-in Thread radios also mean these speakers can function as Thread Border Routers and Matter Controllers. In theory, Matter and Thread don’t require an internet connection, so you could control your smart home over a local Wi-Fi connection if your hub supports it. In practice, this functionality is is not ready for primetime yetbut I’m glad it’s coming.

Ultimately, you’ll need to decide whether the Alexa or Google Home app is sufficient for your smart home needs. While a smart home app can be a fun way to test out an ecosystem before purchasing an additional device, the convenience and affordability of smart speakers make them useful tools.