Smart home guides

Decision guides written and reviewed by people, checked against the same compatibility dataset that powers the rest of the site. Each guide states its sources and its last-updated date.

• Matter vs Zigbee vs Z-Wave: which smart home protocol to build on

  Radio bands, mesh behavior, hub requirements, and device availability across the three protocols — with the certified-device counts from our dataset and the cases where each one wins.

• Do you need a Thread border router?

  Only Matter-over-Thread devices need one, and you may already own it. What a border router does, which hubs and speakers have one built in, and which popular hubs do not.

• How Matter bridges work: Hue, Aqara and IKEA devices in Apple Home

  A Matter bridge exposes its Zigbee devices as Matter endpoints, putting whole ecosystems into Apple Home or Google Home at once — here is what carries over, what stays app-only, and when bridging beats native pairing.

• Choosing a smart home hub in 2026: radios, ecosystems, and local control

  A five-step decision framework — phone ecosystem, existing device protocols, local vs cloud control, subscription costs, and future radios — with a reference table of ten flagship hubs.