In the smart home, the term gateway stands for the smart home control center: all smart home sensors (e.g. window sensor , water sensor ) send their data to the gateway via the Zigbee radio protocol. This processes the received data and then triggers an action if necessary. A concrete example: If the window sensor reports that a window has been opened, the gateway triggers the action "Turn down the heating" and sends this command to the radiator thermostat. In addition, the gateway feeds the received information into the WLAN so that the smart home owner can call it up via an app on their smartphone. Of course, the flow of information also works the other way around: the smart home owner can use the smartphone to issue commands that are to be executed by the smart home components, e.g. B. "Lights off in the living room". Here, too, the command is first sent to the gateway, which then forwards the command to the affected components.

Some gateways are connected to a cloud connected, e.g. B. the smart home center from the essentials brand. Others offer local control of the smart home devices where the smart home data is not forwarded to the cloud, e.g. B. that ConBee USB gateway . In order for the smart home to work without a cloud, a separate server is also required as a storage center for the smart home data.