Make your old tablet the hub
Smart‑home coverage pushed practical fixes: repurposing an old iPad or Android tablet as a dedicated control panel can centralize device control without buying a new display. Writers also argued Thread border routers reduce the need for bulky hubs and that Home Assistant continues to gain traction as a local‑first alternative to cloud ecosystems. (zdnet.com) (makeuseof.com) (howtogeek.com)
A spare iPad or Android tablet can now do the job many people once bought a separate smart-home screen to handle. (zdnet.com) ZDNET’s Maria Diaz wrote on April 17 that an old tablet can be mounted on a wall, left on a stand, and used to run apps from Apple Home, Google Home, Alexa, SmartThings, Home Assistant, or Hubitat. She recommended keeping the device plugged in, turning on kiosk or guided-access modes when available, and placing it in a central room. (zdnet.com) The hardware shift underneath that advice is Thread, a low-power mesh network for smart-home devices. Thread Group says a Thread border router links that mesh to Wi‑Fi or Ethernet, and the function can live inside products like smart speakers and displays instead of a dedicated box. (threadgroup.org) MakeUseOf wrote on April 17 that this is why one Echo Show 8 could replace a stack of older hub gear for a kitchen setup. The piece said the display’s built-in Thread border router let Matter devices connect without adding another central hub. (makeuseof.com) Matter is the shared language in that setup: a standard meant to let one certified device work across Apple, Amazon, Google, Samsung, and other platforms. MakeUseOf noted in a February explainer that Matter still depends on compatible device types and ecosystem support, but Thread and Matter together are making mixed-brand setups easier than they were a few years ago. (makeuseof.com) Another current push is toward software that stays inside the house instead of sending every command to a company server. How-To Geek wrote on April 17 that Home Assistant grew from an estimated 1 million installations in 2024 to 2 million in 2025. (howtogeek.com) Home Assistant itself announced the 2 million active-installation mark on April 16, 2025, during its State of the Open Home event. GitHub later said Home Assistant was one of its fastest-growing open-source projects by contributors in 2025. (home-assistant.io) (github.blog) That does not mean Alexa, Google Home, or Apple Home are disappearing. How-To Geek said Home Assistant still trails the big commercial platforms by a wide margin, but its appeal is local control, broader device tinkering, and fewer cloud dependencies. (howtogeek.com) The practical result is simpler than the standards talk: many homes already own the screen, and many newer speakers already contain the network bridge. The upgrade in 2026 is often not buying another hub, but deciding which old tablet gets pulled out of the drawer. (zdnet.com) (threadgroup.org)
