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This smart home gadget is designed to be a tool that can be the central hub used to control your other smart devices.
"Hello everyone and welcome to another Gamereactor Quick Look.
This time we are saying hello to a brand new manufacturer, SwitchBot, that we haven't had a chance to feature before."
"Now they've also sent us some smart sort of drape runners, which are really cool, which in a like really easy way can turn your sort of drapes into something that you can control your phone with your voice, which I think if you're living in a place, for instance, like mine, where there are these big window spaces, which you need to quickly sort of cover up."
"For instance, if the light penetrating inward from the windows is obscuring your view of the television, for instance, when just to be able to use your voice or use your phone to do such tasks is really cool, like controlling your lights, for instance.
SwitchBot does that, but they also do something a lot more general and broad in its appeal."
"That is the Hub 3, as you can see before me right here, because this is, in all senses of the word, a command module for the modern smart home.
It is a matter-enabled smart hub, which you can either place or hang in your home, and a little screen, as you can see here on the box, will show up with a bunch of adaptable shortcuts and commands that you can use to control your smart home."
"Now, it utilizes Wi-Fi 2.4 gigahertz and Bluetooth Low Energy, if that is the case.
It can charge very easily through USB Type-C, and it can also connect directly to something through USB Type-C as well.
There's both an input and output here on the back."
"Now, it is mainly made for Matter.
Matter is a smart home connectivity protocol, which a lot of established brands already use.
Now, that means that it can control lights from Philips Hue, that it can control thermostats from a bunch of brands, and all of that can be mapped here to this command module."
"So let's say that you have your smart home where you have a bunch of separate manufacturers that you use through their dedicated apps or through a dedicated service that connects them like Google Home.
When you use the SwitchBot Hub 3, it gives all of that a physical dimension that Google, for instance, themselves do not offer."
"You have to use a Google tablet or a Google phone to just get access to these quick settings, and a lot of people, I think, want a hub for these things.
These buttons here are adaptable.
This scroll wheel here is adaptable, and there's also, on its own merits, built-in sensors such as temperature and humidity, which I think is fantastic as well, meaning that on this little screen, you will get a bunch of information at a glance."
"The temperature in the room, the humidity of the room, the state of the scenes of the lighting in your house, the smart drapes that is either folded or unfolded, for instance, a bunch of different things, and I think that is really, really cool, and a lot of the functionality is basically just up to you, but there is a little bit of a but here, because while it works with Google Assistant and Siri and works with Google Home and Apple Home, it only works through Matter, and that is not the only smart home protocol that is there that is currently vying for the control of your home."
"For instance, there's also Thread.
This does not support Thread, meaning that there might be some manufacturers left out in the dark, so when you buy this, make sure that you go through and you make sure that all of the manufacturers that you want to use, that you have to go through the Hub 3, well, that it works with Matter and isn't Thread specific, but as you can see here, there is always like Alexa, Hey Google, Siri shortcuts, IFTTT, Samsung SmartThings, it really should work, but just make sure that the functionality is there before putting in an order."
"We will fully review this in the days and weeks to come, so stay tuned for that.
See you on the next one."
