I was finishing a new room in my basement and wanted smart switches down there. The Zigbee models I liked all came with the same fine print: hub required. A SmartThings hub sat in my Amazon cart, one tap from ordered, before I remembered my Echo Hub has its own Zigbee radio. A handful of other Echos do, too. I’d already unified all my smart devices under one app, and I’d almost undone that for a handful of switches. I paired new bulbs directly to Alexa to test the idea, and then I canceled the order.