The smart home market in 2026 looks less like a revolution and more like a sorting-out. PCMag's June 2026 update to its best smart home devices list still puts the Aqara Camera Hub G5 Pro at the top of outdoor security picks, at $179.99, and notes that it acts as a hub for other devices through built-in support for Matter, Thread, and Zigbee. That combination of three protocols on one device says more about the state of the industry than any press release.
Matter was supposed to end the compatibility wars. The idea was simple: a single standard that lets a light bulb, thermostat, and lock talk to each other regardless of whether the buyer uses Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri. The Aqara G5 Pro shipping with Matter, Thread, and Zigbee on board shows manufacturers hedging their bets rather than betting the farm on one protocol. It is a sensible hedge, but it is also an admission that the war is not over.
The Hub Is Back, Just Under a New Name
A few years ago the industry declared the hub dead. Everything would connect directly to Wi-Fi, no middleman needed. The PCMag roundup tells a different story. The Aqara Camera Hub G5 Pro doubles as a Matter controller and Thread border router, and the TP-Link Tapo L535E smart bulb at $17.99 works over Wi-Fi and Matter. Manufacturers are not abandoning direct Wi-Fi, but they are quietly reintroducing the hub as a feature rather than a requirement.
The reason is practical. A thermostat that talks over Thread uses less power and responds faster than one fighting for bandwidth on a crowded 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network. The Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium, listed at $249.99, ships with a remote sensor to balance temperature across rooms, and it is the kind of device that benefits from a stable low-power mesh. Thread provides that mesh, but only if something on the network acts as a border router. Hence the hub, renamed.
Cameras and Locks Carry the Security Load
The security category remains the strongest reason people buy connected devices at all. The Arlo Video Doorbell delivers HD or 2K video with a 180-degree diagonal field of view and supports both wired and wireless installation. Video doorbells now serve as the first line of defense against porch piracy and home invasion, recording visitors whether the homeowner is present or not.
Smart locks follow a similar logic. The Ultraloq Bolt Fingerprint, priced at $249, adds HomeKit support to a lock that already opens by fingerprint, keypad, mobile app, voice, or traditional key. Redundancy matters here. A lock that fails open is a liability, so offering five ways in is not feature bloat, it is risk management. The question is whether buyers will pay $249 for that redundancy when a basic deadbolt costs $30. For most households, the answer is still no, and that price gap explains why smart locks trail smart bulbs in adoption.
Industrial IoT Has the Same Problem at Larger Scale
Consumer smart homes get the headlines, but industrial IoT is where the money is. According to a RightFirms analysis of IoT use cases in 2026, manufacturers use connected sensors for predictive maintenance, production line monitoring, quality control, and energy management. Logistics firms track deliveries via GPS and monitor product conditions in transit. Healthcare providers run remote patient monitoring through wearables and hospital equipment tracking.
The business case is straightforward. Predictive maintenance reduces machine downtime, and downtime costs money. Real-time condition monitoring lets a logistics firm reroute a shipment before a temperature excursion ruins a pallet of pharmaceuticals. Those savings are measurable in a way that a smart light bulb's energy savings are not.
Yet the same fragmentation problem shows up at scale. A factory floor may run Zigbee sensors, Modbus controllers, and proprietary gateways that do not speak to each other. The Matter standard has not penetrated industrial settings, and it is not clear it will. Industrial buyers care about uptime and certification, not about whether their vibration sensor works with a phone app.
Where the Money Actually Goes
The smart home spending pattern is lopsided. PCMag's roundup lists dozens of devices across rooms, from $17.99 bulbs to a $4,499 Segway Navimow X390 robot mower. The bulk of unit sales sit at the low end. Bulbs, plugs, and speakers move in volume because the cost of failure is low. A $17.99 bulb that drops off the network is annoying. A $249 lock that drops off the network is a security incident.
That asymmetry shapes how the market grows. Consumers buy cheap devices first, learn the rough edges of their chosen platform, and then decide whether to trust the expensive ones. It is not clear that path leads to a fully connected home for most households. It may lead to a house with twelve smart bulbs and one dumb thermostat, which is not the future anyone promised.
What to Watch Next
Two things matter in the next twelve months. First, whether Matter 1.4 and the device types it adds, including energy reporting and water management, actually ship in products at prices people pay. Second, whether Thread border routers become a standard feature of routers and smart speakers rather than a separate purchase. If the border router disappears into the infrastructure, the hub question answers itself.
Until then, the Aqara G5 Pro at $179.99 carrying three protocols is a fair picture of the market. It works. It is not elegant. And it is probably what connected homes will look like for a while longer.
Energy Monitoring Is the Quiet Winner
Energy tracking does not get the same attention as security cameras, but it may be the feature that justifies the cost of a smart home over time. The TP-Link Tapo P110M smart plug monitors the power draw of any appliance plugged into it, and the TP-Link Tapo L535E bulb tracks its own usage and supports customizable scenes. The Ecobee thermostat offers energy-saving schedules. These are not dramatic features. They are the kind of thing a homeowner notices on a utility bill six months later, when the number drops without anyone changing habits. That delayed payoff is why energy monitoring rarely headlines a product launch, and why it may be the feature that keeps people in the ecosystem once the novelty of voice control fades.
Privacy remains the unresolved issue. Cameras and locks generate sensitive data, and the companies making them are not always clear about retention and sharing. The Arlo doorbell records visitors by default. The Furbo pet camera streams continuously. Buyers who want the convenience have to decide how much surveillance they are comfortable installing in their own homes, and the terms of service are not written for casual reading. It is not clear the industry has earned the trust it is asking for.
For more coverage of connected devices and home automation, see our IoT category. PCMag's full smart home roundup is available at PCMag.
