One of the most frustrating aspects of building a smart home network is the diverse device management, using varied technologies located across your home. Solutions that can gather and control smart home devices on a centralized platform make smart home living so much easier.
Smart home control panels provide the ideal interface for streamlining your smart home, offering maximum utility and convenience. These feature-rich hubs can be installed in place of smart switches across the home, massively upgrading your smart home ecosystem’s functionality. This guide includes a selection of the very best smart home control panels, spanning voice, touchscreen, and even movement control.
Top smart home control panels
Amazon Echo Hub
Market-leading connectivity and integrations
This new-release smart hub ticks all the boxes for smart home connectivity, with an 8-inch HD display and Alexa voice control. Integrations are easy as this low-profile wall-mountable hub boasts Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, Sidewalk, Matter, Thread, and Zigbee connectivity. Set-up can be tricky, but features like widgeted device settings, video doorbell integrations, and a media cache for music and photos make this display a useful addition to any smart household.
- High level of device integration using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, ZigBee, Thread, and Matter
- Excellent privacy controls
- Proximity detection and ambient light sensors
- Small touch screen display
- No camera
- Limited customization as reliant on the Alexa app
The hotly anticipated Echo Hub offers a streamlined solution for smart home device owners who want to organize diverse devices on a platform with streamlined and simplified controls. If you’re an Alexa addict, you can expect easy app-based onboarding of your Amazon devices, with responsive voice control, but the Echo Hub offers an impressive constellation of integrations, including ZigBee and matter connectivity. And unlike many Echo devices, you can readily wall mount this smart home control panel as it is free of the bulbous back-end speakers.
Amazon Echo Hub review: A smart display for smart homes
Take a closer look at Amazon’s first-generation smart home hub.
Though the 8-inch screen is a little disappointing for photos and the lack of an onboard camera dashes hopes of using the hub for video calls, Echo does integrate well with smart home security solutions like Ring, allowing you to view and speak to visitors at your front door. As a first-generation device, there are some teething problems, especially as the hub is reliant on the Alexa app. But overall, Amazon has done a pretty good job of providing comprehensive user-friendly control of your entire smart home ecosystem.
Brilliant Smart Home Control
Easy integrations and a video display
If you need to integrate multiple smart home devices, Brilliant makes it easy with its Smart Home Control panel. It works intuitively with smart home technologies like Alexa, Sonos, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit. The stylish in-wall panel includes a camera, intercom, and music player that can connect to Sonos speakers.
- Extensive range of controls, including intercom, locks, thermostats, and more
- Built-in motion sensor for responsiveness and security
- Easy installation and onboarding of smart home devices
- Requires neutral and ground wires
- Dimmer function is limited
- Smart lights must be connected individually rather than grouped
Brilliant is currently leading with a smart home control panel that prioritizes consumer-friendly integrations. You’ll have no problem onboarding Alexa, Sonos, Google Home, Kasa, and Hue devices from across your smart home ecosystem. This low-profile touchscreen control panel has aluminum housing that comes in multiple neutral tones to fit in with your home decor.
The modern and intuitive touchscreen settings can be programmed to control lighting, music, thermostats, and more, but beware of teething problems with dimmers; they may not dim to the maximum with certain smart bulbs. If smart home security is a must, Brilliant’s control panel also includes a camera (with privacy shutter) and an intercom that integrates beautifully with the Ring smart doorbell. Pros also buy multiple control panels to create an in-house video intercom for messaging and broadcasting to people in other rooms.
Google Nest Hub 2nd Generation
Google makes things easy with a simple, modern hub
The Google Nest Hub is an affordable, centralized solution for smart home control at a great price. Better still, it is simple to set up and perfect if you don’t want the hassle of wiring switches or complicated setups. In fact, its built-in motion sensors mean that you can control many of its functions with a simple wave of the hand alongside responsive voice control.
- Quick gestures stop calls, music, or timers
- Partners beautifully with Nest Doorbell and Nest Cam
- Display can be used to stream YouTube, Netflix, and other entertainment services
- Not wall mountable without a separate adapter
- Language settings may need to be changed from Chinese to English
- Auto updates can cause teething problems
This second-generation Google Nest Hub is a leap forward for those familiar with Google smart home tech. This is a great piece of hardware that is packed with thoughtful, practical features that make daily living easier. However, you won’t get far with this hub unless your smart home contains Google Home or Matter-compatible devices.
That being said, you’ll love the quick and easy device onboarding, covering every aspect of your smart home. If you’re looking to upgrade your home security, pair this hub with the Google Nest Doorbell and Nest Cam to answer your door from anywhere in your home. The entertainment features are pretty great, too, with voice-controlled YouTube and Netflix streaming, where you can pause or stop viewing with a hand wave.
Google’s hubs are usually standalone devices, but if you want to wall-mount your hub, there are lots of great Google Nest Hub mounts and stands to get your control panel positioned exactly where you want it. Many owners even use this hub as a digital photo frame, demonstrating the versatility of this neat smart home panel.
ANJIELO SMART Smart Home Control Panel, Dimmer, and Music Player
Small and simple to use
Anjielo’s more compact smart home control panel uses the Tuya app for intuitive touchscreen control of devices like locks, lighting, music players, and air conditioning. The Android 8.1, quad-core CPU panel can accommodate a memory card, allowing you to download your favorite apps and music for enjoyment throughout your home.
- Easy to wire into an existing light switch position
- Various preset modes and scenes available including office, restaurant, and households
- Various interfaces available including TF card, USB, and AUX
- No camera or microphone
- No video display
This Anjielo smart home control panel is a more compact and discrete option and a great upgrade to a smart switch. This tidy unit is just 3.94-by-3.94 inches, making it easy to locate in place of a regular light switch. The control panel’s functionality is more limited than the premium model we’ve reviewed as it cannot handle home security. However, it is still a great choice that spans dimmable lighting, RGB lighting, curtains, air conditioning, and music.
With the Tuya app, you’ll have no problems adding your Alexa, Google Assistant, Smart Life, and Apple HomeKit devices to this switch. The additional interfaces onboard are also impressive, including USB and TF memory cards that can be used to add additional apps to this Android-based switch.
RERE Smart Home Control Panel
Enhanced capacity makes this a smart home behemoth
The ReRe Smart Home Control panel is a stylish yet powerful touchscreen panel that manages your entire smart home via the Tuya app. This 5-inch in-wall panel is capable of onboarding over 2,000 individual devices that can be grouped for intuitive management via touchscreen, Bluetooth, or Alexa voice command.
- Onboard and group thousands of devices
- Powerful quad-core processor for responsive performance
- In-built Alex for voice control
- Requires a neutral wire
- May require professional installation
Smart home enthusiasts will love this 5-inch, Linux-based control panel with quad-core Cortex processors. The ReRe control panel can manage an encyclopedic range of smart home devices (up to 2,700) from all the leading platforms, making it a formidable hub for all your smart tech. ReRe’s control panel houses a ZigBee gateway, Bluetooth mesh connectivity, and Alexa, to deliver competent smart hub performance. Devices are grouped in boxes that span diverse functions, including gaming, health and fitness, home security, and entertainment.
Some users may find the scope of this sophisticated panel unwieldy, but ReRe has created an intuitive interface for voice and touch control with various themes. It also includes an intercom that you can use to make family calls between rooms. US users should have no problem hardwiring the panel into a standard light switch box, but a neutral wire is still required.
SONOFF NSPanel WiFi Smart Scene Wall Switch
Clever little panel that does the basics well
The Sonoff NSPanel is a neat solution that controls basic smart home functions like lighting, thermostat, and curtain management with responsive touchscreen control. Without a camera, microphone, or motion sensor, it will struggle with home security, but it does the basics well, grouping and customizing device settings to create preset ‘scenes’. This Wi-Fi-connected device only works with Sonoff products, but it can also be voice-controlled by Google Assistant or Alexa, or remotely controlled via the eWeLink app.
- Easy to wire into an existing light switch position
- Various preset modes and scenes available
- Smartphone app control
- Only works with SONOFF devices
- Not suitable for smart home security
If you are new to smart home integrations and want to install a few devices to cover everyday functions like your lighting and thermostat, opt for Sonoff devices and use this simple smart control panel. The NSPanel gathers and customizes smart devices into easy-to-manage profiles with the date, time, and weather displayed. Sonoff’s 4.72-by-2.91-inch touchscreen makes a great alternative to Sonoff’s popular smart switch range.
The device includes Alexa and Google Assistant for voice control, which delivers amazing value for money, but frustratingly only works with Sonoff products, drastically limiting the devices you can use it with. NSPanel is designed to fit a standard US gang box, but fitting the panel in older metal boxes can be a problem. Aside from the usual teething problems with onboarding devices, this Wi-Fi-based control panel excels at coordinating your smaller smart home ecosystem.
Smart home displays that put you in control
With smart home devices covering every aspect of daily life, a control panel that manages appliances and environmental settings is an inspired addition to your home. These smart home control panels have come a long way, providing umbrella control for devices that use diverse smart home technologies, with a feature-rich and accessible interface.
Brilliant’s Smart Home Control, though pricey, currently ticks all the boxes for easy and intuitive smart home control. For us, it’s the integrations, camera, and fully functional in-house intercom that elevate expectations of what a smart home panel can do. Plus, it helps that this touchscreen four-switch panel looks the part, too. But it is well worth taking a look at the second-generation Google Nest Hub. For the price, this smart home control panel is a lifestyle buy that can diarize your life, provide entertainment, and control devices with voice, touchscreen, and Quick Gestures.
But the top pick, the Amazon Echo Hub, comes closest to the functionality you should expect from a smart home control panel. It’s an extremely accessible device that has an intuitive widget-based user interface that belies its considerable hardware. With so many integrations, connectivity across the main wireless technologies, and a competent media player onboard, this wall-mountable, voice-controlled hub is an excellent addition to a contemporary smart home.
Amazon Echo Hub
Market-leading connectivity and integrations
This new-release smart hub ticks all the boxes for smart home connectivity, with an 8-inch HD display and Alexa voice control. Integrations are easy as this low-profile wall-mountable hub boasts Wi-Fi, Bluetooth LE, Sidewalk, Matter, Thread, and Zigbee connectivity. Set-up can be tricky, but features like widgeted device settings, video doorbell integrations, and a media cache for music and photos make this display a useful addition to any smart household.
