When it comes to creating a smart home it is easy to get carried away with ideas. It is a good idea to set some ground rules as a starting point to make sure everything continues to work the way you intend. I personally have 2 golden rules that I like to follow which allows my system to scale properly. It also helps when getting the rest of the family on board.

Rule 1: Hardwire beats WiFi

Rule one speaks to more than just a smart home. If you have the ability to hardwire a device, it is always better to do that than to rely on WiFi. WiFi transmits signals using radio bands throughout your home. One of the main causes of slow WiFi in your home is congestion. Wireless routers can only handle so much traffic and so many devices. Once you start to reach the limit of traffic, the router has to decide what to cut back on. This can cause a range of issues from slow internet while browsing to buffering while streaming a show or movie. Any device that uses the WiFi bands will take up some of that bandwidth communicating with your server.

Rule 2: It has to be able to work without an app

My second golden rule has to do with controlling devices in the home. If a device such as a light switch is added to the smart home, it needs to work without the app also. This rule is a lot harder to follow than you would think. Philips Hue light bulbs are one of the groups of devices that comes close to not fitting in this rule for me. These light bulbs, and others like it, require constant power in order to be available through the app. If you want to change the color, they need to be on. If you want to turn them on or off, again, power needs to be going to the light. The issue then is that the switch that may control that light needs to be on all of the time. If you or someone you know turns off that switch, that light becomes uncontrollable. In certain circumstances, this may not be an issue, but there are some devices that it becomes difficult.

This also means that a light bulb in a lamp that has no physical switch needs to be taken into account. With the tech built in to modern smart switches there are some workarounds, but that needs to be decided up front to stick with the rules.

In Conclusion

Deciding on a base set of guidelines will help keep a smart home in order. I’ve built systems over the years that didn’t follow any rules and it becomes hard to maintain very quickly. Maybe you want more rules such as sticking to one protocol. Maybe you have a rule for using no proprietary devices. Coming up with those rules before you start helps save stress down the line.