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CNET Smart Home: building a smart house
Hi Everyone,
CNET just started a big smart home project.
They are converting a house into a smart home and you have been invited to tag along. I think it is a great initiative to see how they build up the smart home from scratch, to see what works and what doesn't and to see how far they can take it.
Wifi coverage
The first thing they did is a video about wifi coverage. You might we're past that stage already, but wifi coverage is actually a huge part when you are building up a smart home. You will be placing devices in places you never though you would Also, adding many different devices can have a huge performance impact.
I thought I had a good router (ac1750), but it turned out it performed horribly when connecting smartphone, tables, laptops and various bridges. The different types of wifi was just killing it. I replaced it with the ASUS RT-AC87U and I have never been happier with a router. It just sits there and I never have to worry about anything. Great coverage, great performance and tons of features.
Your surroundings and wifi placement can be a big factor.
The Cnet article shows you how to create a wifi map of your surrounding. For those who don't have a mac, Wifi Analyzer is a great android app to find out how good your coverage is. Just turn it on and walk around the house. You might be surprised what you find. Placing your router slightly more centrally (and not within the utility closet next to all the power lines) might be a big boost already. I also like to concept of having one router for WAN to LAN and a separate router for Wifi. You don't need the latest and greatest for the WAN to LAN router and it allows you to run a cable from your utility closet to your central wifi router.
Colored lights
Connected lightbulbs are probably the most mainstream product. They are pretty easy to use and it has the instant wow-factor. But are they any good? The Cnet article takes an interesting angle.
LED lights are still seen as poor quality light. Olino also has an very elaborate test setup to test lights and it is a great source to check out if you want to find cheap, but high quality led lights.
My advice is to buy one or two LED lamps and try them out, especially if you are using dimmable LEDs in combination with smart dimmer like the klik-aan-klik-uit or Fibaro dimmers. Some combination have a horrible flickering. It's difficult to predict which combinations work well. Another tip which I like it to combine different types of LED lights in a room in order get a better mix of colors.
What's next?
I'm curious what they will do next. Which topics from the introduction do you like? How did you begin and what have you learned over the years?