Review on 🏠 Aeotec Smart Home Hub: The Ultimate SmartThings Hub and Z-Wave Zigbee Gateway with Alexa, Google Assistant, and WiFi Compatibility by Tim Bunker

My environment: This hub is connected to my switch on my IoT network. I'm using the SmartThings app on a later generation iPad, I'm running 3 hotspots from the switch covering >80% of all SmartSwitch locations. Problem: A hub connected to a switch via Ethernet has one major disadvantage. Don't use hotspots to connect to devices. Rather, it (that hub) needs to be in close physical proximity to each device to establish a connection. This is required not only for initial setup, but also for using devices with a hub after they have been added to the hub. So this device has a limit of 20ft max for each device by device I think. This is a serious design flaw, I'm not sure if it can be fixed with software or not. I was able to connect to the devices, but this involved rebooting the hub, setting the WiFi option in my ethernet setup, and moving the hub to a smart switch location (the garage in this case). I could add devices from here, but the hub had to remain in a central location among all devices, even though each device and hub had access to hotspots and Wi-Fi networks from their home location. Customer Support: I can't give an honest review as there really isn't much support out there. They have a 9am to 5pm schedule so they cannot discuss this topic unless I take the day off. The Alexa integration seemed to work well enough when the hub was physically moved near the switches. I left the device as I needed it for a specific use case and moved it to a random corner in our kitchen. I'm disappointed as I was planning to use it to control some outdoor lights as well, but I need another solution for that as this device is not compatible with outdoor applications (limited by its physical proximity). If you have a big house or you are looking for a device to control external devices, this device is NOT compatible with these functions. If you need it to work with lightbulbs and other items around a small household, it works well enough for that.