“Zigbee or Wi-Fi?” is where most smart home lighting plans begin, although the more important questions are how many lights you want to control, whether you can change the wiring and what should still work when the internet goes down. Typically, a few lights can run on Wi-Fi or Bluetooth with no hub at all, a whole flat is conveniently tied together by a Zigbee network with one hub, designer luminaires and commercial premises are often controlled with Casambi, and when building a house or fitting out an office it is worth considering wired DALI or KNX. We explain the differences – hub, range, router load, working without the cloud, the Tuya, Philips Hue, Google and Alexa ecosystems – and suggest which system suits your situation.
Przemysław Doliński