Amid consumer concerns about privacy, this smart tech innovation could have a big market. Its technology allows it to operate locally, not connecting to the internet and keeping data safer.
Although more targeted to the DIY market, this hub, explained by CNET below, could have applications at a larger scale.
At first glance, the Hubitat Elevation struck me as a pretty standard smart home hub. It has Zigbee and Z-Wave built in so it can communicate with a variety of connected gadgets. You can set up rules so one of your devices can trigger another -- a motion sensor might flash your smart lights. You can group your devices by room and create scenes so multiple devices turn on at once with a single command.
All of those features are pretty standard for hubs such as the SmartThings Hub. Hubitat's main selling point is a pretty interesting twist on the smart hub formula -- it processes everything locally. After the initial setup, Hubitat stores certain device data and automation recipes on the device itself. This should theoretically result in your smart home reacting more quickly to your commands, since they don't need to head to the cloud and back. It also means that if the internet goes down, your smart home can keep functioning.
Local processing isn't entirely new either, as SmartThings offers it with certain devices and automations, but Hubitat wants to take the feature one step further by making all of its automations local -- from rules to geofencing.
