The all-new Aeotec Good Dwelling Hub 2 abandons Z-Wave

Aeotec introduced a brand-new SmartThings-compatible hub on the IFA tradeshow in Berlin that’s positive to disappoint good residence lovers with a number of Z-Wave gadgets. The Good Dwelling Hub 2 helps Matter and has a Zigbee 3.0 radio onboard, however the Z-Wave normal—which predates Zigbee—is not supported.

The brand new hub may carry out as a Thread border router, and Aeotec says it’s able to twice the efficiency of the earlier mannequin (which we praised in our 2021 evaluate), because of extra RAM and a quicker CPU. It additionally has a Bluetooth Low Power radio for onboarding and diagnostics in addition to a USB-A port, however Aeotec hasn’t revealed what operate that element will carry out. It attracts energy by a USB-C port.

The Good Dwelling Hub 2 can connect with your property community over Wi-Fi or with an ethernet cable, and Aeotec says it’s designed for native management first, in order that your good residence gained’t floor to a halt in case your broadband connection goes down.

Z-Wave had been a component of the SmartThings ecosystem ever since SmartThings was launched as a crowd-funding marketing campaign manner again in 2012. Samsung acquired SmartThings two years later, nevertheless it stopped constructing SmartThings hubs in 2021 in favor of integrating them into their good home equipment and good TVs.

At almost the identical time, Samsung granted Aeotec permission to choose up the hub ball and run with it to maintain SmartThings lovers joyful. Samsung then re-introduced its personal hub within the type of the Matter-certified SmartThings Station in early 2023, however I couldn’t discover it in inventory at any on-line retailer right this moment, together with Samsung’s personal retailer.

Aeotec has not introduced pricing for the brand new Aeotec Good Dwelling Hub 2, nevertheless it did say it expects to ship the brand new product on the finish of October. We hope to have a hands-on evaluate shortly thereafter.

This information story is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the perfect good residence programs.