One of the largest retailers for all things home, Home Depot, has just dipped into the smart home market with a brand new app called Hubspace. It’s designed to make smart home device setup as seamless as possible for the average consumer, and make it easier to control your devices, and your home, from anywhere.
The smart home space has grown significantly in recent years and shows no sign of slowing down. Amazon Alexa speakers now silently await orders in the background of many family homes across the U.S and you can command your Google Home to do just about anything. These smart devices offer the convenience of a virtual assistant combined with the operating power to run your entire home after syncing with compatible smart devices. Hubspace is yet another addition to this world of connected devices, and aims to make it more accessible to the mass market American consumer.
We got a chance to sit down with Home Depot Product Development/ Smart Home Merchant Nick Millette and discuss all things Hubspace. Quotes have been edited slightly for grammar and clarity.
What is Hubspace?
Home Depot’s brand new app promises to simplify the smart home experience, and requires no additional equipment to run. It works with a whole slew of compatible devices that are built to be easy to install in your home. All you need to do is scan the QR code of the device you wish to connect and you’re just a few steps away from seamless smart home integration. Once the products are set up within Hubspace you can also easily integrate them with an Amazon Alexa or Google Home smart assistant, if you prefer to control from there.
“While studying the space we found that one of the main issues with smart home was the product setup process. Once you take it out of the box, actually getting [a product] connected to where you can actually use it was something that for the general population was a little bit too complicated,” Millette said.
“There were too many failures, too many things that could go wrong. So we spent a lot of time making sure that our solution would be as seamless and easy as possible for your average non-techy consumer.”
He explained that more affordable price points, and the desire of Home Depot’s consumers for a cheaper smart home alternative, is what’s driven the creation of this platform.
“One of the true driving values of Home Depot’s proprietary brands is we make great products at great prices. So we’ve made smart home more affordable for the average consumer.”
“There’s big sustainability benefits to smart home, convenience, and savings benefits that our customers have recognized over the past couple years. We’ve really seen strong growth and adoption of smart home and we’re just trying to follow the customer with where they take us and provide them a great option.”
They’ve also built the ability for customers to use third party apps if they wish. “We make it as easy as possible for customers to get to Google and Amazon. If customers want to be using third party apps, I’m in the business of making it as easy as possible for customers to control their product.”
What Products Are Compatible With Home Depot’s Hubspace?
Alongside the app launch, they’ve released a whole line of compatible products that include smart light bulbs, smart plugs and ceiling fans. You can find all compatible products here on Home Depot’s website. We’ve also linked a few of our favorites at the end of this piece that are worth checking out.
“We’ve started out with products in our lighting and electrical department. Lots of lightbulbs, recess lights, ceiling fans, smart plugs, landscape lighting transformers. The way we’ve built the Hubspace app and platform was really to be able to grow over time to all the product categories in our store, but we’ve started with lighting and electrical.”
EcoSmart 60-Watt SMART Hubspace LED Light Bulb
This lightbulb is enabled with the ability to be setup and managed within the Hubspace app and doesn’t require a hub. You can set the color temperature anywhere between 2700K and 5000K, as well as set lights into custom groups, set a schedule and control it via your voice.
Defiant 15 Amp 120-Volt Smart Plug
This smart plug is also Hubspace-compatible and has a compact design that still keeps the second plug on your wall free to use. It works with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, and can be controlled via an existing WiFi or Bluetooth connection. It’s got a 15 amp power consumption limit and is perfect for use with household appliances, lamps and other electronics.
Hampton Bay Fanelee Integrated LED Smart Ceiling Fan
This ceiling fan has an integrated LED light you can control, along with the fan speed, via the Hubspace app to set the temperature of the entire room. It comes with a smart remote control and integrated LED technology as well as six different light color temperatures you can choose between. It’s designed to install 25% faster and comes with a brushed nickel finish with five reversible blades in dark oak and gray washed oak finishes.
