In my latest video, I explored various smart home products from Switchbot, a company that has been filling gaps left by other manufacturers in the market especially when it comes to automating light switches and curtain rods.
They recently introduced a new Hub device called the Hub 2, which interfaces their smart home products with the internet and popular home platforms like Google and Amazon. In the video I demo it working with their “bot” that can turn any rocker or button switch into a smart one.
The Hub 2 also controls air conditioners or split systems over infrared, has built-in humidity and temperature sensors, and can control TVs or other devices that use infrared remote controls.
One area that could use improvement is the Matter support on the Hub 2. While it supports this new open source standard I could not get it to connect with my Homekit environment as advertised.
Even if I could get it working, Matter support is limited to just their curtain motors at the moment. I found the open source Homebridge application to be a better solution for bridging Homekit connections as it works with all Switchbot and IR devices through the Hub 2.
Matter issues aside the Switchbot Hub 2 offers a wide range of features and is a great way to connect their innovative smarthome products with automation platforms and the Internet.