Newbie considering buying and need some info about hive

OK so for Hive - you’re good to go. There’s a Hive device type (in fact two - one for water and one for heating) and all the associated apps. See here: [RELEASE] - Hive (Connect) V2.6 (British Gas Hive)
You do need the Hive Hub though, it won’t work without. British Gas claim this is because they use a proprietary communication protocol, I sense this is rubbish since they said the same thing about their plugs and people have got those working fine.

As it makes Hive appear to ST as just another thermostat, anything that works with Thermostats will work with Hive. I’ve got mine controlled via SmartTiles, I can operate it with CoRE and so on.It’s a fantastic bit of code.

You can also work Hive through Alexa, but that’s using Alexa’s own Hive skill - you could use Ask Alexa on ST to work it, but that seems a lot of work for no benefit. The Hive skills for me work just fine.

Hue I see is covered above, I use the Hue Hub but I see there’s quite a lot of success in connecting them directly. I may liberate a single bulb and try it out. For me, if I swapped them and it stopped working that would be the ultimate fail as it’s the lighting that my family use the most.