Hi I was wondering if someone could shed a little light on a query I have. I have been using smartthings for a little while now. Did not have a hub just the app and had some Wiz lights connected, wifi strip light, tv as well as a couple of Philips hue lights and bridge. I recently bought a smartthings hub, I was under the impression that with the hub you could then connect everything through that instead of have everything taking up network space. I seem to only be able to connect my Philips hue hub and lights to smartthings hub everything else is just connected to the network as normal. My question is, is this right? And if so what is the advantage of having a hub then if I could use everything already before hand without it?
The main reason to use the hub is to be able to use devices that will require the other radios that are inside it, specifically zigbee and Z wave. These devices don’t use Wi-Fi themselves.
There are also a very few Wi-Fi devices which do have local integration with the hub, but not many. The most popular one is the Phillips hue bridge. I don’t even know if the Samsung smartthings brand Wi-Fi devices can run locally or not. Most Wi-Fi connections will run through the cloud.
So in short if I was to only use wifi products the hub would pretty much be obsolete? I would need to run philips hue or other zigbee/zwave devcies if I wanted hub integration and for it to run locally?
Yes. Most of the people in this forum are running other protocols, but if you’re going to stick with Wi-Fi, you don’t need a hub.
The following is a good recent discussion on Wi-Fi versus other protocols for home automation:
Ok thanks a lot for that makes sense now
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