SwitchBot’s next smart hub comes with a control knob

Smart home company SwitchBot is preparing a new Matter-enabled smart hub called the SwitchBot Hub 3, according to a registration with the Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) that HomeKitNews spotted. It has a display like the $70 Hub 2, but adds physical controls — including, delightfully, a knob. According to the CSA listing, the Hub 3’s knob works for things like tweaking temperature on your smart thermostat or adjusting media volume — it says it’s compatible with “Apple TV, Spotify, and other streaming platforms for unified audio management.” The other physical controls include what looks like a home button, back button, and a mysterious button with an “S” logo on it. It also has four “editable quick-scene buttons on the home page for one-touch activation of customized modes.” The SwitchBot Hub 3’s display will turn on when it detects motion, including “hand gestures or device movements,” and will show indoor temperature and humidity, third-party weather forecasts, and “real-time status updates for door locks.” It will support SwitchBot’s Bluetooth-connected smart devices, which the Hub 2 bridges to Matter, making them controllable via major smart home platforms from the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, and Samsung. The listing says the Hub 3 supports voice control through both Alexa and Google Assistant. SwitchBot hasn’t officially announced the new hub, and it’s not clear when it might launch. SwitchBot has a large stable of smart home products, including a universal Matter smart home remote and retrofit devices like a curtain-dragging device, tiny button-pressing robot, and stick-on device for turning boring old deadbolt locks smart. In January, the company showed off an inventive modular robotic smart home platform.