Smart home tech is all about communication. In order for your hub to communicate with all of the devices in your home, they need to speak the same language. One of the drawbacks to the smart home industry as a whole is that not everything is built to communicate on one language. Whether it is WiFi, Zigbee, Z-Wave, MQTT, or a proprietary system, the hub needs to be able to talk to the device.

Proprietary

Let’s start with proprietary systems. There are the extreme proprietary systems like Crestron and Control4 that require certification and a professional to install and maintain. Those proprietary systems are beyond the scope of what we are trying to do here. We focus on off-the-shelf tech that allows the end-user to maintain and grow their own system at their own pace. If you would like to get a system like Control4, expect to shell out extreme amounts of money for it.

There are also what I would call semi-proprietary products. These devices require setup with their own system, but smart home hubs can sometimes use the same login information in order to integrate them into your hub. Devices such as Ring doorbells, Nest thermostats, and Phillips Hue lights are all in this category. With regards to the Philips Hue system, you will also need their own proprietary hub to install the lights that you then tie in to your own hub. More often than not, there is a non-proprietary system that can achieve the same results so it is worth looking into alternatives that don’t require using proprietary software if that is what you are after. One of the main drawbacks to some of these products is that they may not offer what is known as “local control” which means they need to be connected to the internet in order to control them through. If the internet goes down, you may or may not lose the control over those products.

WiFi

WiFi is a protocol that some smart home devices use to join the network. Most of them fit into the proprietary category in that you need special software to get that installed on your home network, then you use tie that software into your smart home hub in order to gain control of them. One drawback to a wifi device is that if you have a large number of wifi devices, it may cause congestion with the rest of the wifi devices in your house. The problem with congestion is that streaming services start to lag or the quality drops in order to make up for the fact that it doesn’t have the bandwidth to stream at the highest quality. One of my general rules is to avoid wifi if at all possible.

Z-Wave and Zigbee

Z-Wave and Zigbee are two different protocols that operate at different frequencies but they essentially do the same thing. The frequency bands that these devices operate in are not the same as those that use WiFi so they don’t cause bandwidth issues for your WiFi devices. Both protocols are used strictly for communication of smart home devices.

Z-Wave as a protocol has strict standards in which manufacturers follow in order to be certified. This allows all of the devices with the Z-Wave label to have a minimum level of quality making it a safe choice for running your system. There is also Z-Wave Plus which is a higher-standard for Z-Wave products and has more features than standard Z-Wave products. Light switches with Z-Wave Plus are allowed to communicate two-ways which means your smart home can send a signal to turn on a light, and the light switch can send a signal back that it has been done. Other times the hub may send the signal out and not receive confirmation.

Zigbee also has a set of standards by which manufacturers follow to make their products. Zigbee products have been less strict in the past but that doesn’t mean that they are bad quality. There are still very good zigbee products out there and they often have sensors and devices that you can’t find from a Z-Wave supplier.

Whether you choose Z-Wave, Zigbee, or both, you will need to make sure your hub can communicate with them. Some hubs come with built-in support for one or both protocols, and they also sell aftermarket USB dongles that allow you to plug in to a system to add that functionality.

MQTT

MQTT is a very bare-bones protocol. It also should be in the WiFi category as these devices will need to be connected to your network to communicate. So not only does it add to your WiFi congestion, it needs it’s own communication setup just to talk to your hub. But what MQTT is especially good for is speed. The MQTT protocol requires your hub to have what is known as a broker, which we will get more in-depth on later. What the broker does, is it organizes the messages that are sent over the channels. So the broker listens for certain messages that get sent over the network, and then reacts to those messages based on what they say. The messages themselves are extremely small and require very little data allowing them to be sent extremely fast over a network. There are not many devices that communicate this way but if you are looking for speed then having MQTT as a protocol is a good choice.

The important part to all of these protocols is to make sure that your hub can communicate with them. Once that has been established, then you have the freedom to choose which protocol you want to use. If you can’t decide on a single protocol then set up your hub to accept all of them and then when it comes to picking devices and sensors it won’t matter how they talk because the hub will be ready.