I love being able to control my smart home from the Home app, Control Center (my most used right now), or by asking Siri via a HomePod, but sometimes you just can’t beat a physical product for things. For my Matter enabled shades, I use the remote as much as I control them with the Home app. There are moments when pressing a button or turning a dial is easier than pulling out your iPhone. That’s exactly why the SwitchBot Hub 3 is an awesome product, and it’s something I want Apple to copy with the “HomePad”.
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HomeKit Weekly is a series focused on smart home accessories, automation tips and tricks, and everything to do with Apple’s smart home framework.
Unboxing and setup
Unboxing the SwitchBot Hub 3 is pretty straightforward. Inside the box, you’ll find the hub itself, the AC power adapter, and a stand. I appreciate that SwitchBot includes both the charger and the stand in the box instead of making them optional add-ons. I get really annoyed when products lack the USB wall adaptor. The stand makes placing the hub on a desk, shelf, or nightstand at the right angle easy.
Setup is just as simple. Plug it up, open the SwitchBot app, and the onboarding process walks you through connecting the hub to your Wi-Fi network. Once that part is done, you scan the Matter code on the back and the SwitchBot Hub 3 shows up in the Home app. Matter support here is key because it means you don’t need to rely on just the SwitchBot app for daily use. Once it’s in Apple Home, it behaves like any other accessory.
The SwitchBot Hub 3 also adds new sensors to your house for tracking what’s happening in a room. Out of the box, SwitchBot Hub 3 tracks temperature, humidity, and motion in the room where you place it. That means you can use those readings to build automations in HomeKit. An easy one is leveraging the motion sensor to turn on lights as you come in.
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Another nice benefit is that the SwitchBot Hub 3 brings your existing SwitchBot products into HomeKit if they aren’t already native. Devices that were once locked into the SwitchBot app such as curtain controllers, locks, or sensors now show up alongside your products in the Home app.
All in all, unboxing and setup takes only a few minutes. I set mine up while I was hard boiling eggs and I was up and running with it before the eggs finished.
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