• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • News
  • Lifestyle
Your WiFi and your smart home don’t get along. Now what? thumbnail

Your WiFi and your smart home don’t get along. Now what?

May 9, 2022
Trump’s TikTok Ban Delay Triggers $300M Crypto Allegation and Political Clash thumbnail

Trump’s TikTok Ban Delay Triggers $300M Crypto Allegation and Political Clash

June 21, 2025
ICE enacts new policy on congressional visits to facilities thumbnail

ICE enacts new policy on congressional visits to facilities

June 21, 2025
What is inflation? thumbnail

What is inflation?

June 20, 2025
Housing Starts Plunge as Layoffs Rise—Is the U.S. Economy Losing Its Momentum? thumbnail

Housing Starts Plunge as Layoffs Rise—Is the U.S. Economy Losing Its Momentum?

June 20, 2025
Note to Democrats: War With Iran Is a Monumental Mistake thumbnail

Note to Democrats: War With Iran Is a Monumental Mistake

June 20, 2025
Obama, back in public eye, offers a careful warning of a Democratic slide thumbnail

Obama, back in public eye, offers a careful warning of a Democratic slide

June 19, 2025
The US Should Not Support Israel’s War on Iran, Say Democrats and Republicans thumbnail

The US Should Not Support Israel’s War on Iran, Say Democrats and Republicans

June 19, 2025
Slain Minnesota lawmaker attended Boston University, Harvard thumbnail

Slain Minnesota lawmaker attended Boston University, Harvard

June 19, 2025
Analyst Reveals Cold Hard Truth for New England Patriots' Intriguing Rookie thumbnail

Analyst Reveals Cold Hard Truth for New England Patriots’ Intriguing Rookie

June 19, 2025
Chuck Todd: Trump 'openly admitting that he's politicizing law enforcement thumbnail

Chuck Todd: Trump ‘openly admitting that he’s politicizing law enforcement

June 17, 2025
ICE arrests brother of anti-ICE activist leader in Massachusetts thumbnail

ICE arrests brother of anti-ICE activist leader in Massachusetts

June 15, 2025
Judge says Trump illegally deployed National Guard to help with LA protests, must return control thumbnail

Judge says Trump illegally deployed National Guard to help with LA protests, must return control

June 14, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
  • Donate
Saturday, June 21, 2025
66 °f
Wellfleet
58 ° Tue
63 ° Wed
68 ° Thu
61 ° Fri
  • Login
  • Register
FREE Cape Cod News
DONATE
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • Cape Cod News
  • News
    • News
    • Massachusetts
    • Breaking News
    • Cape Cod Weather
    • Storm Watch
    • Environment
  • Politics
    • democrats
    • republicans
  • Business
    • business
    • cryptocurrency
    • economy
    • money
    • Real Estate
    • Tech
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
    • Orleans
    • Eastham
    • Wellfleet
    • Truro
    • Provincetown
    • Brewster
    • Chatham
  • Videos
No Result
View All Result
Free Cape Cod News
No Result
View All Result
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • Cape Cod News
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
  • Videos
Home Lifestyle

Your WiFi and your smart home don’t get along. Now what?

FREE Cape Cod News by FREE Cape Cod News
May 9, 2022
in Lifestyle, Tech, Things To Do
Reading Time: 6 mins read
Donate
0
Your WiFi and your smart home don’t get along. Now what? thumbnail
633
SHARES
1.4k
VIEWS
Share on TwitterShare on Facebook

Still, there are some common threads at play, so if you run into problems with your supposedly-futuristic smart home crapping out, here are some things we recommend trying before you give up and return everything in a fit of rage.

Move the device (or your router)

Let’s start with the most common (and obvious) tech trouble: WiFi signal. If your home’s WiFi is already spotty, you’re not exactly setting yourself up for success by adding a bunch of smart devices. Try moving the device in question—whether it’s a Sonos speaker, smart plug, or other accessory—closer to your WiFi router. If you find it’s more reliable the closer it gets, you’ll know signal strength may be to blame, and you’ll need to extend your WiFi with better equipment. If you use a WiFi extender or mesh system, you’ll get better results if you wire them together with Ethernet, rather than repeating the WiFi signal

If you’re lucky, you may even be able to get better signal throughout your home just by moving the router. If it’s all the way off to one side of the house, for example, moving it to a more central location will provide a more consistent signal. I’ve even heard that if a device is too close to your WiFi router, moving it away from the router can help. I haven’t seen this myself, but if nothing else works, there’s no harm in trying.

Of course, not all smart devices use WiFi. Some use open protocols like Zigbee or Z-Wave, while others (like Insteon) use their own communication technologies. Philips Hue, for example, contains a hub that wires directly into your router and communicates wirelessly with its bulbs using a Zigbee mesh. If a bulb is too far away from the hub—or from another Hue bulb—it may be finicky, or unable to turn on at all. In this case, you’ll either want to move the hub, or add more bulbs near the problem area.

Similarly, when my Insteon ceiling fans were acting unreliably, it was because they were too far away from the next link in the chain, making it difficult to communicate with the controller hub on the other side of the house. I added an Insteon smart plug between them as an “extender” of sorts, so the signal could make shorter, more reliable “hops” back to its home base.

Wire devices to your router when possible

A white WiFi router with wires plugged into the back.
Just start plugging away. Lorenzo Cafaro / Pixabay

Wired connections will always be stronger and more reliable than wireless ones. Even if you have a seemingly good WiFi signal somewhere, you might get better results if a device is wired up with Ethernet.

Sonos, for example, uses WiFi to connect each speaker to your home network. If you plug just one speaker into your router with an Ethernet cable, though, that speaker will create its own separate wireless network and run your speakers off that instead, so they aren’t competing for bandwidth. If you can’t plug one of your speakers into the router, the standalone Sonos Boost performs the same function.

In addition, I’ve found that some smart home hubs—like the Philips Hue Bridge—perform better when plugged directly into the router, rather than being plugged into an Ethernet switch. If you have a complicated setup of network gear—say, a router from your internet service provider, a switch, and a few mesh extenders or powerline adapters—you may get better results from certain network devices than others.

Isolate the 2.4GHz WiFi band

Many modern routers are “dual band,” using both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies to improve speed and cut down on interference. To this day, some routers require you to have two separate networks as a result (e.g. Smith_House_2GHz and Smith_House_5GHz), which is clunky and inefficient. But now there are also alternatives that allow you to use the same network name for both frequencies, and your laptop, phone, and other devices will intelligently choose the best frequency they can.

But believe it or not, many smart home devices are not that smart. Some may have trouble choosing the correct band, or—shockingly—some may only be compatible with the old 2.4Ghz frequency. This can cause all kinds of connection problems during the initial setup—the device is looking for a 2.4GHz network, but the app wants to hand off the 5GHz version your phone is connected to, causing the whole thing to fail. Yes, this is a hilariously stupid problem, but I’ve seen it happen.

There are a few potential solutions here. If you can log into your router’s settings and temporarily disable the 5GHz band, you might be able to get the app to connect your new device to the correct network. If that isn’t an option—as is the case on many modern routers and mesh systems—you might try using an old 2.4GHz-only phone or tablet to perform the initial setup. (The iPhone 4S was the last single-band iPhone, while a lot of old Android tablets were single-band as well.) If all else fails, you could add a second 2.4GHz-only router for those devices. But if you ask me, at that point, I’d just return my smart home product and buy something that works properly.

Other options

I’ve successfully used the above solutions quite a few times, though they aren’t the only ways to solve your wireless woes. In my research, I’ve stumbled upon many other “quick fixes,” which may or may not work for you, but are worth a shot. These include:

  • “Reboot” your router, hub, or device. Yep, the ol’ “turn it off and on again” trick works just as well for smart home gadgets as it does for WiFi routers. Unplug it, wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in to see if your problems go away.
  • Put your router into “bridge mode.” If you’re using an ISP-supplied modem/router combination in conjunction with a mesh system, you might be running two wireless networks that are interfering with one another. Enter the administrative settings for your ISP-supplied router and enable the bridge mode setting—if you can find one—then let the mesh system create the network to avoid doubling up. If your ISP-supplied router doesn’t offer this feature, you may have to put the mesh system in bridge mode from its app instead.
  • Repair the mesh. If the devices in question use the Z-Wave protocol (search for your device’s name and model to find out if this is the case), you might be able to solve your problems by repairing the Z-Wave mesh in your hub’s app. (Or, in the case of the current Samsung SmartThings app, by contacting customer support.)
  • Use modern WiFi encryption schemes. If you’re still using a WiFi network with an outdated WEP or WPA password, you’ll want to upgrade it to WPA2 encryption to ensure the best security and compatibility with recent devices.
  • Do a factory reset. It isn’t fun, but if your device used to work reliably, you may just need to go back to a blank slate. Open the smart home app in question, reset the device to its factory settings, and try setting it up from scratch.

With any luck, one of these tweaks will solve your problem, and you’ll get that 21st century home you’ve always wanted. If not, it may be time to swap out your router, mesh system, or smart home device for something else entirely—or go back to flipping light switches the old fashioned way until someone else figures all of this stuff out.

Read More

Tags: computershomewifi

FREE Digital Newspaper Subscription!
Sign up for your free digital subscription. The FREE Cape Cod News

Unsubscribe
FREE Cape Cod News

FREE Cape Cod News

Free Cape Cod News is what's happening in the Cape Cod, U.S and World & what people are talking about right now. Local newspaper. Stay in the know. Subscribe to get notified about our latest news.

Related Posts

Humpback whales can give birth while migrating thousands of miles thumbnail
Nature

Humpback whales can give birth while migrating thousands of miles

by FREE Cape Cod News
May 22, 2025
Scientists discover how some flowers mimic the smell of death thumbnail
Nature

Scientists discover how some flowers mimic the smell of death

by FREE Cape Cod News
May 10, 2025
Is your heart aging too fast? thumbnail
Fitness / Health

Is your heart aging too fast?

by FREE Cape Cod News
May 5, 2025
New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week  thumbnail
Movies

New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week 

by FREE Cape Cod News
April 26, 2025
Load More
Please login to join discussion

Follow Us on Twitter

FREE Cape Cod News - Your source for local Cape Cod news, latest breaking U.S. and World news. Every day, all day. Subscribe for your favorite categories.

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Are the Boston Celtics done making major moves to prepare their roster for the 2023-24 NBA season? thumbnail

Are the Boston Celtics done making major moves to prepare their roster for the 2023-24 NBA season?

July 20, 2023
Cape Cod Traffic

Avoid Cape Cod Traffic Jams: Insider Tips for Leaving the Cape After Vacation Without Hitting Major Delays

July 21, 2023
Why Florida’s home insurance crisis isn’t going away thumbnail

Why Florida’s home insurance crisis isn’t going away

July 20, 2023
ICE enacts new policy on congressional visits to facilities thumbnail

ICE enacts new policy on congressional visits to facilities

0
Trump’s TikTok Ban Delay Triggers $300M Crypto Allegation and Political Clash thumbnail

Trump’s TikTok Ban Delay Triggers $300M Crypto Allegation and Political Clash

0
Note to Democrats: War With Iran Is a Monumental Mistake thumbnail

Note to Democrats: War With Iran Is a Monumental Mistake

0
Trump’s TikTok Ban Delay Triggers $300M Crypto Allegation and Political Clash thumbnail

Trump’s TikTok Ban Delay Triggers $300M Crypto Allegation and Political Clash

June 21, 2025
ICE enacts new policy on congressional visits to facilities thumbnail

ICE enacts new policy on congressional visits to facilities

June 21, 2025
What is inflation? thumbnail

What is inflation?

June 20, 2025

FREE Cape Cod News On Twitter

Today’s News

  • Trump’s TikTok Ban Delay Triggers $300M Crypto Allegation and Political Clash June 21, 2025
  • ICE enacts new policy on congressional visits to facilities June 21, 2025
  • What is inflation? June 20, 2025
  • Housing Starts Plunge as Layoffs Rise—Is the U.S. Economy Losing Its Momentum? June 20, 2025
  • Note to Democrats: War With Iran Is a Monumental Mistake June 20, 2025
FREE Cape Cod News

Copyright © 2024 Free Cape Cod News

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
  • Donate

Follow Us

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

No Result
View All Result
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • Cape Cod News
  • News
    • News
    • Massachusetts
    • Breaking News
    • Cape Cod Weather
    • Storm Watch
    • Environment
  • Politics
    • democrats
    • republicans
  • Business
    • business
    • cryptocurrency
    • economy
    • money
    • Real Estate
    • Tech
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
    • Orleans
    • Eastham
    • Wellfleet
    • Truro
    • Provincetown
    • Brewster
    • Chatham
  • Videos
  • Login
  • Sign Up

Copyright © 2024 Free Cape Cod News