Their devices transfer data to the cloud, which does all the heavy-lifting. Second, the cloud can handle more complex processing. Think of it like this: you can’t run Photoshop on your iPhone, but you can run it on a decent computer. Smart devices aren’t always powerful enough to do the job, so the Cloud acts as a computer – doing the work and letting your less powerful device take all the credit. Amazon Echo is an example of a device that uses cloud-based services to analyze data. Could Amazon have made Echo with local processing? They could have, but that might have taken away Echo’s ability to understand rich, natural language and more importantly, it might have made the device less affordable. However, cloud-based processing doesn’t come without trade-offs, the biggest of which is the possibility of a privacy breach. Data travels from your device to the cloud-data you might not want someone else to see. This includes video from your home security camera, your arrival/departure times sent from your smart lock, and your home address set within your smart hub. While manufacturers assure us that data is encrypted and secure, there’s no assurance that a device is hack-proof.Īnother downside of devices relying on the cloud is that they also rely on the internet: when the internet goes down, your smart home goes down. Leaving you unable to control your lights, locks, thermostat, and other smart home devices. The case for devices that process locally is that they are more secure and can work even when your internet is down. While smart devices that work with the cloud are a dime-a-dozen, devices that have some sort of local processing ability are still rather rare. Here’s our list of smart home devices that can perform locally. The newest trend is a hybrid solution: devices use the cloud but aren’t completely dependent upon it. Hubitat, often compared to SmartThings, is an inexpensive hub that talks to a variety of smart home devices. It’s customizable to almost the same extent as SmartThings, making it an appealing choice for tinkerers and developers. The major difference, however, is that Hubitat is capable of running everything offline, including rule-based automation, manual smart home control, and even geofencing. The Hubitat hub connects to your devices via IP or Wi-Fi, so some of your devices might require an internet connection to work with Hubitat. However, you can plug a Z-Wave/Zigbee stick into the hub to enable it to connect to Z-Wave and Zigbee devices for total local access…no internet required. The new Hubitat hub will include built-in Z-Wave and Zigbee radios, making the process even easier.
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