Does your home suffer from spotty WiFi? It works great in the family room but terrible upstairs or garage? Learn how to get great WiFi and a smart home too.
Spotty WiFi is a major pain point for most homeowners.
The latest in WiFi connection technology is designed to create a powerful mesh signal throughout the house with the use of multiple “hubs.” This is a brilliant way to get secure WiFi throughout your home.
One such company making this mesh WiFi technology is Samsung SmartThings. When I learned about their solution to WiFi, I became very intrigued.
I love the way SmartThings enfolds smart home technology right into the product.
As a big smart home DIYer, combining WiFi mesh technology with smart home technology makes sense.
Now with the same WiFi hubs, you can connect to your Nest cameras, Philips lights, WeMo plugs and devices, and hundreds more of smart home products.
But first, let’s talk about a spotty WiFi connection and how the SmartThings WiFi 3-pack not only helps but improves upon the average WiFi router.
Fix A Spotty WiFi Connection
Do you get a great WiFi signal in your family room but a spotty WiFi signal in your kitchen, bedroom, or garage?
There have been some really strong WiFi routers you can buy over the years with multiple antennas that promise a longer WiFI coverage, but still lack in going the distance.
The beauty of using a mesh WiFi product like the SmartThings WiFi 3-pack is you can arrange the multiple hubs in key areas around your house so the WiFi signal is more directed.
For example, I put the main SmartThings WiFi hub (from the 3-pack) in my downstairs hall closet, connected to our Frontier cable router.
I placed the second hub directly above it upstairs, right outside of my bedroom. The last hub I placed inside the house, but close to the garage.
As long as the three hubs are within 60 feet (less dependent upon your home’s construction) of another hub, you should get a really good signal.
We now get a strong signal in our upstairs bedroom and our bonus room, which is next door.
I can also get good WiFi coverage in our mudroom and garage. I need WiFi coverage in my garage for my Liftmaster Home Bridge, which allows me to open my garage door using my Chamberlain/Liftmaster app.
WiFi coverage in the garage is also helpful for my Canary camera (to watch my pups when they are out there) and to watch helpful DIY videos when working my Odyssey of the Mind teams.
Expand Your WiFi Coverage
The SmartThings WiFi comes in a single pack, which covers a home up to 1,500 sq. ft. or a 3-pack, which offers WiFi coverage up to a 4,600 sq. ft. home.
A 3-pack should handle most homes. Nonetheless, if you have a bigger home or want coverage outside the home as well, you can add up to 32 hubs!
Smart WiFi
The SmartThings WiFi 3-pack is not just WiFi, it’s smart WiFi, based on Artificial Intelligence that learns the WiFi coverage patterns of your home and how and when devices are used.
SmartThings partnered with Plume which learns your environment to maximize WiFi coverage performance for a fast, reliable WiFi experience.
In a sense, it acts as an air traffic controller, sending data for different devices through different channels or bands between hubs for the fastest route.
Plume Technology…
- Gives you a clear view on the WiFI connection between hubs
- Shows on-the-spot performance of your network, seeing live speed and performance to your devices
- Provides real-time threat protection against cyrpto-mining, randsomware, malware, botnets, phishing and other frauds, spyware, Spam URLs, and more
- Includes built-in ad blocking
- Provides advanced protection to keep your Internet-connected devices secure 24/7
- Allows for guest access
To have real-time threat protection enabled in your WiFi router is an amazing benefit. Now, everyone connected in the household can be safe from common Internet fraud and vulnerabilities.
WiFi Parental Controls
SmartThings WiFi even allows you to assess usage down to the device level. You will be able to see which devices are using the Internet when and how much they are downloading or uploading.
- If your son is on video game console curfew, you can actually block the PlayStation 4 from accessing the Internet.
- If your daughter has a digital curfew cutoff at 8pm, you can turn off WiFi usage of her devices at that time.
Now parents have more control over digital time per person or device and can set the hours for when gets can get online using WiFi.
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Worried about the content your child can access? Parents can set what types of content their kids can access at the person or device level.
WiFi Guest Access
Guest access is also helpful for that once dreaded, “can I get onto your WiFi?” question. You can allow your guests (or most likely your kid’s friends) access onto your WiFi without allowing them access to your private PC or Mac files.
You have two options:
- Limited Access – guests have limited access to the use of devices in your home, already connected to the Internet. But they only have access to the ones you choose to make available to them, such as the Xbox, kitchen PC, a laptop, etc.
- Internet Only Access – you can set up a special WiFi password that they can use with their tablets, PC’s, or phones, to access the Internet, but they won’t be able to interact with any household devices
You have the option to set up a password that expires…
- 3 hours from now
- Auto-expire
- Never expire
- 1 hour from now
- End of day
- or a custom time
Now that’s a lot of flexibility in WiFi guest access!
Setup – Do You Have to Know What You’re Doing?
Now You Can Run A Smart Home
Along with all of these great features of the SmartThings WiFi 3-pack, there are also two leading smart home frequencies built into the hubs:
- Z-Wave
- Zigbee
Both frequencies work in a mesh environment to send smart home signals to connected lights, lightwitches, cameras, smart plugs, TV’s, thermostats, appliances, and more.
Using the SmartThings app, you can
- Set connected lights and speakers to come on right before you arrive home for work
- Ensure your digital locks lock every night at 8pm
- Have the fan plugged into your smart plug turn off at 12am. You can adjust the thermostat to a certain temperature, once it senses your phone in the house
- And so many more things!
You have so many options. Dependent upon your need, you can purchase literally hundreds of products that SmartThings supports.
For example, you can buy a small motion sensor for $25 and easily program it to turn on the hallway light at night when it senses motion.
This one comes with a base you can stick on a wall and a metallic ball. The sensor itself sticks to the ball, so you can easily position it to face the way you want. I placed mine on a cabinet in one room facing the adjoining hallway to track movement.
I created an automation trigger so that when motion is detected, the hallway light turns on. It turns off automatically after 3 minutes, if no motion is detected.
I also attached a multipurpose sensor, that sells for $20, to the double doors in my dining room. I’ve always been frustrated because my doors don’t line up, making it hard to use a door sensor.
This is not a problem with this sensor. Though there is some space between the two pieces of the sensor, the app shows the door as closed. But once the door is opened, the app shows they are opened. Now I can keep track when I’m traveling should this door get opened unexpectedly.
Next I will program my lights to turn on once I open my garage door with my connected locks. There are thousands of possibilities.
Multiple Brands, Multiple Solutions
What I like best is that you don’t have to buy a kit and expand your smart home using only that brand’s products.
You can add to your smart home ecosystem, on a la carte basis, adding various branded products from different companies to solve your needs.
Having used Z-Wave and Zigbee for nearly 10 years now, I can tell you that SmartThings has found a way to make connecting smart devices easier and inclusive.
In the past you used to have disparate devices that didn’t talk to one another, making it a frustrating experience for homeowners.
The SmartThings 3-pack sells for $279.99 through the SmartThings website with free and fast shipping.
A Mom’s Perspective
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