How Much Internet Speed Does Your Smart Home Need?

Wed, Feb 24, 2021 4:08 PM Internet Bundles Broadband Deals Technology

The smart home such as home alarm system (eg. vivint alarm. Ring, ADT), thermostat, and a smart lock has become increasingly popular. Installing one unit every few months, whether in the form of a conscious decision to update as much as possible around your home or through a piecemeal effort, before you suddenly realize you have a fully functional smart home.

But there is another crucial and much simpler aspect to a good smart home: a secure and safe internet connection, in addition to all the gadgets and modern technologies you can easily spend thousands of dollars on. Yet what does qualify as stable? And how fast does it need to be for a link? Before jumping headfirst into a smart home renovation, is there something else you need to know?

In terms of Internet speed, what do common devices need?

The excellent thing is that most devices you might find do not generally take up much bandwidth in the typical smart home. This makes perfect sense if you think about it for a bit, given that a few simple commands aren't as complex as a video file. Just because an instruction produces a fantastic outcome doesn't mean that from a bandwidth or data point of view the instruction itself was anything special, so you can find comfort in this.

Here's a shortlist of common devices or types of devices and what you might consider:

Your first concern should be devices that require a continuous connection. A larger bandwidth allotment should perhaps be given to anything that records sound or streaming media (these can also be smart home devices). Some intelligent digital assistants, such as Alexa, might be mostly dormant, but when determining your internet setup, you should plan for the highest possible use.

Devices that are only active when a command is executed will not use a lot of bandwidth and will only be relevant when they are active. Although you can prepare for them, they will not be a major burden on your network unless you have one of the worst internet access still open.

Smart light bulbs, thermostats, or home climate control systems, which only require the occasional set of new instructions and door locks, are other devices that may fall into this category.

A big exception to the rule that devices do not need much bandwidth is smart home devices with cameras (video baby monitors and smart doorbells) because they can send video files (all of which are very large) to either your computer or a server. And even if the cameras are not working (maybe they're motion-activated) at all times, that bandwidth would have to be accessible.

The upload speed needed by your Smart Home

The question has two facets. While in the previous section we specifically addressed download speed, you also need to remember upload speed, which is a much lower number and a more popular roadblock from most providers.

Luckily, it is also not so widespread as a need, as it will mainly be used in two situations:

Providing data to you via connected software. Just sending data like this would probably not be a burden on the uploading capabilities of your network.

Video feeds will be the biggest culprit for taking your bandwidth upload, just like the last portion. If you're going to get a video feed on a smartphone from home, you'll need 5 Mbps for each video feed, with some variations in the quality of the video.

That being said, if you have several smart devices in your home, then if your network is not up to the task, the necessary upload speed for it to function properly will add up and trigger problems.