I am a noob to home automation but I have a few Kasa light switches that I like. The Kasa switches connect via wifi and Google is able to interact with them. I am also interested in some smartblinds (maybe Smartwings) and I notice they REQUIRE a hub. I understand they are Zigbee over wifi. Why do some devices require a hub and others don’t?
All devices require a hub, they need a hardware and software controller to work. It’s just that many “hubs” are a wifi router and cloud services. The hubs you are referring to are just local hardware and software controllers that live in the same space.