IMHO, thread and matter will probably be as mature as homeassistant and zigbe2mqtt in the 2030ies. At the moment, Zigbee devices can work without any hub as long as you stick to one vendor.
Aka buy lightbulbs and switches from ikea and you can right out start using them, I believe you only need a hub to create groups of devices which then can get controled with one switch. You then could unplug the hub and still use them, only needing a hub for ethernet bridging and automations.
> Aka buy lightbulbs and switches from ikea and you can right out start using them, I believe you only need a hub to create groups of devices which then can get controled with one switch. You then could unplug the hub and still use them, only needing a hub for ethernet bridging and automations.
Yeah thanks for pointing this out -- just need a single Zigbee coordinator (if my light research has been correct so far) and I'm ready to go.
Aka buy lightbulbs and switches from ikea and you can right out start using them, I believe you only need a hub to create groups of devices which then can get controled with one switch. You then could unplug the hub and still use them, only needing a hub for ethernet bridging and automations.