General & Concepts
Explore 5 terms in the general & concepts category of our smart home glossary.
Home Automation
Home automation is the "if this, then that" logic that makes a smart home actually smart. 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 just hardware - automation is what gives them a brain.
Learn more →Local Control
Local control means your smart home works without the internet. Your commands stay on your network, your devices respond instantly, and when Amazon's servers go down or a company shuts off their cloud, your lights still turn on. It's the difference between owning your smart home and renting it.
Learn more →Smart Home
A smart home is a residence equipped with connected devices that automate everyday tasks - lights, thermostats, locks, and more - all controllable from your phone or voice. It's less about having fancy gadgets and more about making your home respond to how you actually live.
Learn more →Smart Home Hub
A smart home hub is the central brain that connects your devices and makes them work together. It translates between protocols (Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread), runs your 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 the "hey, turn off the lights" interface to your smart home. Whether it's Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, or an open-source alternative, it translates your spoken commands into device actions. And with AI/LLM integration, they're getting genuinely smarter - not just matching keywords, but understanding what you actually mean.
Learn more →Want more smart home knowledge?
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