General & Concepts
Explore 5 terms in the general & concepts category of our smart home glossary.
Home Automation
Home automation is the technology that allows smart home devices to operate automatically based on triggers, schedules, or conditions. It's the difference between controlling your lights from an app (convenient) and having them turn on automatically when you walk in the door at sunset (magical). The devices are hardware - automation gives them a brain.
Learn more →Local Control
Local control is when your smart home devices operate entirely on your local network without requiring cloud servers or internet connectivity. Your commands stay on your network, devices respond instantly, and when Amazon's servers go down or a company kills their cloud service, your lights still turn on. Ownership vs renting.
Learn more →Smart Home
A smart home is a residence equipped with internet-connected devices that can be monitored and controlled remotely via smartphone, voice, or automation. It's less about having fancy gadgets and more about making your home respond to how you actually live - lights, thermostats, locks, and more working together.
Learn more →Smart Home Hub
A smart home hub is a central device that connects and coordinates smart home devices across different protocols like Zigbee, Z-Wave, and Thread. It translates between protocols, runs automations locally, and gives you a single app to control everything - instead of twelve apps from twelve manufacturers.
Learn more →Voice Assistant
A voice assistant is software that uses speech recognition and natural language processing to control smart home devices and answer questions. Whether it's Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, or an open-source alternative, it translates spoken commands into device actions - and with AI/LLM integration, they now understand what you mean, not just keywords.
Learn more →Want more smart home knowledge?
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