The best smart home hub depends on how hands-on you want to be: Automate Your Life, a smart home channel that says it has tested every major hub, picks Aqara’s M3 for beginners, Homey Pro for easy power and Home Assistant Green for unlimited capability.
All five hubs below run automations locally, so your lights and sensors keep working when the internet drops. Prices are from Amazon on October 16, 2026.
Best smart home hub: Quick Picks
Prices from Amazon at time of writing. I may earn a commission from links, at no cost to you.
| Hub | Price | Why it fits | Link |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aqara Smart Home Hub M3 | $139.99 | Automate Your Life’s beginner pick; Matter bridge, IR blaster, strong Apple Home support | Check price |
| Homey Pro (2026) | $449.00 | Seven radios and the easiest powerful automations, per Automate Your Life | Check price |
| Home Assistant Green | $219.00 | Home Assistant pre-installed; the most device support, per Automate Your Life | Check price |
| Hubitat Elevation C-8 Pro | $194.95 | Local Zigbee, Z-Wave Long Range and Matter with no subscription (listed) | Check price |
| Aeotec Smart Home Hub (SmartThings) | $159.99 | SmartThings hub with Zigbee, Z-Wave and Matter for Samsung households (listed) | Check price |
What a smart home hub should do
Automate Your Life says a real hub should handle security sensors, locks, lighting, thermostats and more; have an automation engine deep enough to include conditions; and offer a DIY security system and dashboards. Single-brand hubs like Lutron’s are reliable but are not full smart home hubs by that standard.
Best smart home hub by user
- Beginners and Apple Home users: Aqara Smart Home Hub M3. Automate Your Life calls it the best hub to integrate with Apple HomeKit and says most Aqara devices need no subscription.
- Power without code: Homey Pro (2026). The channel says Homey’s visual Flows “turn novices into experts.”
- Tinkerers: Home Assistant Green. The channel calls Home Assistant “a tech wizard’s dream.”
- Set and forget, local only: Hubitat Elevation C-8 Pro. Paul Hibbert, a smart home YouTuber, says Hubitat has been “absolutely rock solid” for him in a Hubitat-sponsored review.
- Samsung SmartThings homes: Aeotec Smart Home Hub (SmartThings).
Samsung’s own SmartThings Station did not turn up as a current Amazon listing in this check, so the Aeotec hub, which works as a SmartThings hub, is the closest Amazon-sold option. Home Assistant Yellow was also not listed on Amazon.
Best smart home hub head-to-heads
Read Homey Pro vs Home Assistant Green and Hubitat vs Home Assistant for the detailed comparisons.
What Automate Your Life Found Testing Hubs
These points are paraphrased from the video transcripts and credited to each creator. They are the creators’ own findings and opinions, not mine.
- Aqara M3: Ethernet or Wi-Fi, an IR blaster that learns old remotes, and one of the few Matter bridges, which helps if you upgrade later.
- Homey Pro: Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 433 MHz radios plus infrared; no Z-Wave Long Range.
- Home Assistant Green: comes installed, but you research and buy your own radios.
- The channel used Homey to build its own security system and says it lowered its monthly insurance.
Aqara M3: Best Smart Home Hub for Beginners
Automate Your Life picks the M3 because it lets beginners start cheap and upgrade later (Automate Your Life, “I’ve Tested Every Smart Home Hub and These 3 Are The Best!”). Aqara sells doorbells, locks, cameras and door, motion and presence sensors, with a DIY security system, a customizable app home page and family sharing. Most Aqara devices need no subscription, and cameras and doorbells offer local recording. In one test, an Aqara doorbell recognized his face and unlocked an Aqara lock, which he says is hard to do with other hubs.
- Radios: Aqara’s own Zigbee, Thread and Wi-Fi devices, plus Matter devices from other brands. No Z-Wave or Bluetooth device support.
- Matter bridge: one of the few, so you can move Aqara devices into another Matter app later.
- Apple Home: he calls it probably the best hub for HomeKit, citing a reliable connection, HomeKit Secure Video support and lower prices than much HomeKit gear.
- Automations: easier and deeper than Amazon, Google or Apple, but not the most sophisticated engine available.
Homey Pro: Easiest Powerful Automations
Automate Your Life says Homey Pro wouldn’t have made its list three years ago, but Homey has since built what it calls a world-class automation engine and dashboard system (Automate Your Life, “I’ve Tested Every Smart Home Hub and These 3 Are The Best!”). Homey’s app adds conditions between triggers and actions, which many hubs lack, and the web-based Advanced Flows use drag-and-drop with a test tool to watch an automation run. Everyone in the house gets a personal home page, and dashboards can run on wall tablets.
In a follow-up comparison after two years with both systems, the channel flagged a scaling limit (Automate Your Life, “Home Assistant vs Homey in 2026 – The Honest Comparison”). Each Homey integration runs as its own app, which helps stability but uses memory. Its 2023 Homey Pro, with 2 GB of RAM, filled up twice and couldn’t install another app. The 2026 Homey Pro moves to 4 GB, and the Homey Pro Mini has 1 GB. You also can’t link two Homey hubs together. The channel says it runs about 100 devices on its Homey without trouble, but couldn’t run 100 apps. That video was sponsored by Narwal, a robot vacuum brand unrelated to these hubs.
Home Assistant Green: Most Capable Smart Home Hub
Home Assistant Green comes with Home Assistant installed, which removes the hardest part of getting started, according to Automate Your Life (Automate Your Life, “I’ve Tested Every Smart Home Hub and These 3 Are The Best!”). The trade-off: you research and buy your own radios, such as a Z-Wave stick or a combined Zigbee and Z-Wave dongle, and work out Thread and Bluetooth. In return you get the largest community, Node-RED if you want visual flows, and support for almost any device, often within a day of a product’s launch.
In the follow-up, the channel says complex automations end up easier on Home Assistant because you can paste in community blueprints and code, “the Game Genie cheat codes,” as it puts it (Automate Your Life, “Home Assistant vs Homey in 2026 – The Honest Comparison”). Home Assistant also runs on anything from a Raspberry Pi to a 64 GB PC, and multiple instances can be linked for big properties. It hadn’t hit a memory limit on its Green.
Hubitat Elevation C-8 Pro: Set-and-Forget Local Control
Hubitat sponsored Paul Hibbert’s C-8 Pro review and sent the hub (Paul Hibbert, “Hubitat C8 Pro Review – Is It Time To Dump Home Assistant?”). He says the C-8 Pro has twice the computing power and RAM of the C-8, built-in Wi-Fi so it can sit centrally without Ethernet, Matter support, and works with Alexa, Google Home and Apple Home. He found setting up its new app frustrating at first, but called its basic automations ridiculously straightforward and liked the new Easy Dashboards, which build a room dashboard in a few taps.
He ended up using both: Hubitat runs all his Zigbee and Z-Wave devices, and Home Assistant handles Aqara, Broadlink, Tuya Smart Life and his custom dashboards through the Hubitat integration. Hubitat needs no Nabu Casa subscription to expose devices to Alexa, which he notes saves a monthly fee.
Video: Paul Hibbert, “Hubitat C8 Pro Review – Is It Time To Dump Home Assistant?”. Embedded with credit.
Smart Home Hub Radios at a Glance
- Aqara M3: Zigbee, Thread, Wi-Fi, Matter, IR blaster; Ethernet or Wi-Fi.
- Homey Pro: Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 433 MHz and infrared; no Z-Wave Long Range.
- Home Assistant Green: add your own radios by USB.
- Hubitat C-8 Pro: Zigbee, Z-Wave Long Range and Matter (listed), plus built-in Wi-Fi per Paul Hibbert.
Best Smart Home Hub: Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best smart home hub for beginners?
Automate Your Life picks the Aqara M3. See also my guide to a smart home hub for beginners.
Do smart home hubs need a subscription?
None of the five here require one for core features, per their listings and reviewers. Home Assistant offers an optional Nabu Casa cloud plan.
Which hub supports the most devices?
Home Assistant, according to Automate Your Life.
Which smart home hub is best for Apple Home?
Automate Your Life calls the Aqara M3 probably the best hub to integrate with Apple HomeKit.
Does Homey Pro have device limits?
Automate Your Life hit the app memory limit twice on its 2 GB 2023 Homey Pro; the 2026 model has 4 GB.
Is Hubitat or Home Assistant better?
Paul Hibbert found Hubitat more set-and-forget, while Home Assistant is more flexible.
Sources
- Amazon product listings for the products linked above, from Amazon at time of writing
- Automate Your Life: “I’ve Tested Every Smart Home Hub and These 3 Are The Best!”
- Automate Your Life: “Home Assistant vs Homey in 2026 – The Honest Comparison”
- Paul Hibbert: “Hubitat C8 Pro Review – Is It Time To Dump Home Assistant?”
Related: Homey Pro vs Home Assistant Green | Smart Home Hub for Beginners | Hubitat vs Home Assistant
Notes and disclosure
Note: Prices come from Amazon listings at time of writing. Prices change often, so check the current listing. Specs are the manufacturers’ listed numbers unless a reviewer is credited. Test results and opinions quoted above come from the YouTube reviewers and sites credited in each section; prices those reviewers mention are as of their videos. Paul Hibbert’s Hubitat review was sponsored by Hubitat, which sent the hub. I have not tested these products myself.