We’re often asked which smart home hub we would choose, if we were automating our property. Of course, this is highly subjective so to make the process of decision making a little easier, we thought it would be a good idea to do a comparison of the 3 best selling Z-Wave hubs on our shop.
1. Fibaro Home Center 2 - The established option
Our most popular seller is the Fibaro Home Center 2. A well established choice, the Home Center 2 is a powerful Z-Wave hub which has a very polished user interface and decent apps for iOS and Android phones and tablets.
The Home Center 2 can be used without an internet connection, if you don’t want to use cloud functionality or remote access, and it is powerful enough to run numerous scripts and devices. Scripting is supported, and is written using LUA.
The Fibaro Home Center 2 does not have a Z-Wave Plus chip. This doesn’t mean that it cannot talk to newer devices, but it does mean that you don’t get the range benefits of Z-Wave Plus from your devices to the hub itself.
The Fibaro Home Center 2 supports virtual devices. These are essentially plugins to allow the hub to talk to other devices, such as Philips Hue and Sonos audio devices. There are hundreds of virtual devices available, and they can be built into your scenes and scripts.
The Home Center 2 supports network connection via ethernet.
At time of writing, the Home Center 2 costs £389.99 with free delivery.For full details and latest pricing, click here.
2. VeraEdge - The best value choice
The VeraEdge is our second most popular smart home hub. VeraEdge is the latest in a long line of Vera home controllers from MiCasaVerde who are an American smarthome manufacturer. The VeraEdge has Z-Wave Plus support, includes a wide range of plug-ins and has an open API which means there are lots of third party applications that can talk to the VeraEdge controller.
The iOS and Android apps lack the polish of the Fibaro equivalents, so many users opt for 3rd party control apps such as Imperihome (http://www.evertygo.com/imperihome)
The VeraEdge supports plugins, which are available at apps.mios.com - these add support for things like NEST thermostats, and other 3rd party devices.
The VeraEdge supports connection to your network via ethernet or Wi-Fi - meaning you can position the hub in a central area of your home for better Z-Wave range and routing.
At the time of writing, the VeraEdge costs £102 excluding delivery.For full details and latest pricing, click here.
3. devolo Home Control - the new contender
The devolo Home Control system is the newest contender for best smart home hub. It’s a Z-Wave smarthome system built by devolo in Germany. The master controller is a ‘homeplug’ based controller, which is very neat and compact and is ideal if you already have a homeplug/powerline network at home. The system is designed to be simple to configure and use, unlike some other Z-Wave hubs which can be quite technical, as it has video clips showing you how to add each of the different sensors provided by devolo. Like all of the above hubs, it supports any Z-Wave compatible devices.
This hub requires an internet connection for management, so if you’re not keen on the cloud then this isn’t the option for you. The hub can be connected via ethernet, or via powerline networking.
The 3rd party device support is less broad than the Vera or Fibaro controllers, but the support is provided directly from devolo rather than via a community of authors.
The devolo hub is the first of the commercial Z-Wave controllers in the UK to support Amazon Alexa - meaning you can control your Z-Wave smarthome using an Amazon Echo or Dot device.
At the time of writing, the devolo controller is £109.99 excluding delivery. A starter kit is available.For full details and latest pricing, click here.
Which is the best smart home hub?
We think the answer to this depends on what you want to achieve, and your technical skills. So, here’s our summary:
If you want Amazon Alexa Z-Wave voice control, or are non-technical and looking to set-up your first smarthome, then we’d recommend the devolo Home Control Starter Kit as being the best place to start.
If you are looking for the best value controller, or need Z-Wave Plus or Wi-Fi support, then we’d recommend going for the VeraEdge controller.
If you want a powerful master controller, with great apps and scripting support, then we’d recommend the Fibaro Home Center 2.
Of course, you may not agree with us - so please drop us a comment below to suggest your best smart home hub choice if you disagree or have other suggestions.