Are you seriously considering creating a smart home? How good is your Wi-Fi connection? I've learned that if it's not great, your smart home's performance will suffer. To the point where you get bored of all the smart gadgets and stop using them.

From my point of view, if I replace "dumb" objects with "smart" objects, they should be better. But when you turn on a smart light and have to wait several seconds for it to turn on, it gets pretty annoying.

After some troubleshooting, I realized my WiFi was the problem. So the question was: how can I solve this problem? Spoiler: I bought some stuff.

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Apple Home vs. Alexa vs. Google Home: https://shreh.ca/2vZ1m5d

Now, why is a strong WiFi network important for a smart home setup? It's simple. The better your coverage, the more likely you are to be able to access your smart devices.

Having a strong WiFI network is absolutely necessary for those who plan to use Siri, Alexa, or Google Home to verbally control their devices. A poor WiFi network may be slightly more tolerable with Apple Home with its Home App user interface, as you can see which devices are unresponsive.

So, how was my WiFi setup before? I live in a long two-story house with a router stupidly installed in the basement (ISP's fault). I split the WiFi on this router between the 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands. In addition to the router, I also had an AirPort Extreme connected to the router running a 2.4GHz Wifi network downstairs (most smart home gadgets are on this network).

To detect dead spots in my house, I performed WiFi strength tests at different locations in my house. Now I live in a house that is over 100 years old, which is important to note because a new addition was added in the 80's. Why is this important? Because the concrete foundation significantly reduces the signal strength of my WiFi. This foundation is right in the middle of my house.

So despite having two routers on different floors of my house, about half of my house has poor Wi-Fi coverage.

Now what did I do to fix this? I'll be honest with you, the only way for me to solve my problem was to spend money.

The first thing I tried was to call my ISP and complain about how slow my wireless internet was. They sent a technician who didn't tell me anything new. The technician's solution was to spend more money and suggested I purchase a random assortment of equipment from the ISP.

I considered plugging in a few more Cat5 outlets in my old house and moving the router, but the concrete foundation was always going to be a problem.

So the next step was to see what my money could buy. I was particularly interested in mesh WiFi networks, as my experience with WiFi extenders using Apple Airport Expresses was mediocre at best. I generally had the Google WiFi system in mind because it would give me more reason to use my Google Home since it has been so neglected.

Setting up Google WiFi was easy as all I had to do was download the Google WiFi app and follow the steps. I opted for the three node configuration because I felt the length of my house was going to be an issue. I ended up putting one node in the living room, one right next to the router, and one in the master bedroom.

I went to re-test the wifi and everything was visibly better. Overall, the signal strength in my house improved in every room with a -9 dBm signal right next to the router, which was cool.

As far as download speeds go, everything in the house was much faster. The most improved area was the second floor bedrooms and the back of the house. Basically, areas that didn't have Wi-Fi now have Wi-Fi.

Each light, after some reinstallation hassle, is now accessible by Siri, Alexa and Google Home, regardless of where the lights are located and where I am in/near the house.

One of the things I was hoping for with the WiFi upgrade was to extend the network to my garage. With my old setup, WiFi was non-existent, but now I get decent coverage, which means I have a few extra places to add smart home gadgets!

Now, at the end of the day, is this improved WiFi access worth the $400 I paid for the Google WiFi? Every year I pay almost $1,000 for internet and I wasn't getting the speeds I was paying for. Since my ISP put my router in a stupid place and I live in a long house, I'm not too bothered about the $400 investment in my WiFi.

What do you think?

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