SwitchBot is the smart home stuff I recommend to doubters, and it’s on sale

There are some people who are eager to automate every aspect of their home with the latest smart home gadgets. Then there are some—many of them regular readers and commenters on this site—who could not only care less about the latest white plastic IoT thingy, but actively avoid such things.

I get it: If it connects to Wi-Fi, it requires signing up for an account, and there's a chance the company selling it could go bust at any time. It's also a no-go for anyone who cares about security or who just wants simplicity. The Matter standard is supposed to solve exactly this problem, but its real implementation and impact have been slow and underwhelming.

This is why I'm writing about just one set of gear while it's on sale for Prime Day (even if you're not a Prime subscriber): SwitchBot. I didn't use SwitchBot stuff until recently, but now that I have, it's what I'd recommend to anybody who just wants to make a few things in their home easier to turn on, turn off, or automate. There are no voice controls, no AI, just buttons and switches that do what you tell them.

Start small with the Bot

The most pure automation product SwitchBot offers is the Bot (Amazon). It's a little cube with an arm that pushes or pulls buttons. You stick it near something that has a switch, and then either set a schedule, activate it by Bluetooth, or, if you get deeper into the Switch-iverse, toggle it using a physical remote, a Hub button, or remotely via a cloud connection through that Hub.

You could go much deeper, of course, with SwitchBot's interconnecting products: a motion sensor that triggers the lights in the garage, a dehumidifier that turns on when the humidity hits a certain level on your meter, and so forth. But you can also just trigger the Bot from your phone, using Bluetooth, without signing in to a SwitchBot account. That's pretty rare, at least among companies with as many products on offer as SwitchBot.

Branch out with meters and infrared-blasting hubs

Beyond the Bot, you'll need an account to keep expanding. But given how SwitchBot has been integrated into Home Assistant and its rather robust API documentation, I tend to believe that even if SwitchBot, the company, goes kaput, SwitchBot, the products, will continue to be accessible. It will always be somewhat of a gamble and a hassle, but I tend toward optimism in this case.

If you have devices in your home that have their own dedicated infrared remotes, like air conditioners, fans, or air purifiers, a SwitchBot Hub Mini or Hub 2 can, if placed near them, replicate their buttons and trigger them remotely. If you place them within Bluetooth range of your other SwitchBot gear, they can also make them accessible from your phone through a cloud connection (either SwitchBot's own app or the typical Google/Alexa/Apple/IFTTT route), but that's optional. The Hub 2 is also Matter-compatible and has two buttons that you can use for other automation, and it gives you a temperature and humidity readout for good measure.

I use a Hub 2 to do a few things in a home office. The office has a big, flat, sun-catching southern wall, so it tends to get warmer than the rest of the home. Having SwitchBot's app alert me when it's over a certain temperature or humidity helps me balance the home's single-zone A/C. I use the buttons on its face to activate an overhead fan rather than keep its remote on the desk. And by creating a cloud connection for the nearby Bot button-pusher, I can have it click on the tiny gray garage door remote when I'm on my way back in with my bicycle.