At MWC, TP-Link showed me off its new Matter-compatible smart home hub, the Tapo H500 Smart HomeBase. There are a few things about it that remind me of the Google Pixel tablet—especially its charging dock. Look at it.
Generally speaking, the Tapo H500 serves the same purpose as the Pixel tablet: it’s your central location for controlling your smart home. But that’s where the real similarities end. Everything about HomeBase is different. For one, you carry your tablet. You can place your iPad, Galaxy Tab, or even skip the entire tablet section and close the tablet latch. In order to control the connected device, I had to open the TP-Link Tapo app installed on my iPad in the demo area.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
There’s no wireless or pin charging here, but there is a USB-C port on the back of the HomeBase for charging. Just grab the USB-C cable and plug it into your tablet.
You can use any tablet with HomeBase H500. You lose the seamless convenience of a Pixel tablet, but gain versatility.
Between this and manually opening apps, you don’t enjoy any of the seamless conveniences of the Pixel tablet dock. But you trade it for extra versatility, since you can take any tablet and upgrade it without changing the hub.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
But, I hear you ask, what does an actual hub do? Its primary purpose is to be the central connection point for TP-Link Tapo security cameras and sensors. It has 16GB of built-in storage for storing and processing (face, object and package detection) all security footage. It also supports ONVIF. It can connect to 64 other smart home devices via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Matter or Thread.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
The Homebase H500 also comes with a 110dB adjustable siren for sounding an intruder alarm and taking calls if you want to see what’s going on in your home.
TP-Link also has a higher-end version, the H900, which comes with a tablet and is supposed to be more of a Pixel tablet competitor. It offers a digital photo frame, alarm clock, calendar, notes and some entertainment features, but it wasn’t on display at the booth so I couldn’t test it. I also couldn’t see which operating system TP-Link was running behind all these features.
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
There’s no word yet on when these two Homebase models will be available, nor do we know any pricing details. But if the price is in the $100 range, I think it would be an interesting proposition for smart home enthusiasts.