---
title: "Sentai Smart Hub basics"
description: "What’s inside the Sentai hub, what its lights and button do, and where to place it."
url: https://help.sentai.co.uk/en/articles/3-sentai-smart-hub-basics
collection: "Getting started"
updated: 2026-10-29
language: en
---

# Sentai Smart Hub basics

What’s inside the Sentai hub, what its lights and button do, and where to place it.

## The Sentai hub and its component parts

The hub combines a microphone, speaker, presence and movement sensor, LED status lights, and a Zigbee hub for additional connectivity in a single device. It enables users to communicate with Sentai. It’s powered by a USB-C power supply that is delivered with the device. [See the full hardware specification here.](https://help.sentai.co.uk/en/articles/12-hardware-specification.md)

### Sensor

Sentai has a built-in radar sensor in the Sentai hub that can sense presence and motion. It’s not able to distinguish specific people, but it’s able to tell if someone is around.

### Microphone

Sentai has a microphone in the Sentai hub that enables users to communicate with Sentai.

### Lights

The **blue light** means Sentai is **listening.**

The **amber light** means Sentai is **thinking.**

The **green light** means Sentai is **talking.**

The **white light** means Sentai is **on standby waiting for the wake word.**

If the **top of the white light is amber,** it means a **chat message is waiting** to get delivered.

The **red light** means Sentai is **muted.**

The **pink light** means Sentai is **offline** and can’t reach the internet.

A **rotating amber light** means Sentai is **updating its software.** Don’t unplug it.

### Button

The hub has a single button:

-   **Press once** to start a conversation. Sentai will greet the user.
    
-   **Press once during an interaction** to stop it.
    
-   **Press and hold for 3 seconds** to mute Sentai. The lights turn red. Press again to unmute.
    
-   **Press and hold for 10 seconds** to reset the hub, for example to [set it up on a new Wi-Fi network](https://help.sentai.co.uk/en/articles/29-change-the-wi-fi-network-on-a-device.md).
    

## Setup basics

To set up your Sentai, download the Sentai mobile app and follow the step-by-step instructions to connect your Sentai hub to your home Wi-Fi network and configure your preferences.

### Internet connection

Sentai requires a stable internet connection to function properly, as it relies on cloud-based services for its voice recognition and communication features. [How to connect Sentai to Wi-Fi](https://help.sentai.co.uk/en/articles/14-connecting-sentai-to-wi-fi.md)

### Is Sentai listening all the time?

Sentai’s not listening all the time. The microphone in the Sentai hub operates in a limited listening mode that processes audio locally without recording, storing, or transmitting any data to external servers. Only after the wake word is detected, or a scheduled interaction has started, does the hub begin to send audio data for processing.

### More than one Sentai in a house

We currently support one Sentai hub per user account. We recommend placing the hub in the main room of the home, in a corner, facing the room where users spend most of their time awake and engaging in conversation, reminders and tasks. The presence sensors are located in the front of the device, so it’s important they face the room.