But now, Wi-Fi is a strong contender, and more Wi-Fi smart gadgets arrive every day.
So, which should you use?
The answer is complicated.
But in the past, Wi-Fi as a total smarthome solution wasn’t a serious consideration.
Until recently, if you wanted a smarthome, either Z-wave or ZigBee was your best bet.
You picked a protocol and tried to stick with it.
And most smart hubs support both, so, when necessary, you could use both in your home.
Wi-Fi devices didn’t have much support or centralized hubs to tie all the gadgets together.
But that changed this year—a fact that was evident at CES.
Now, for everyZ-Wave Lockon the market, there’s aWi-Fi alternative, often from the same manufacturer.
But not all things are equal between the protocols.
All Wi-Fi smarthome gadgets depend on the cloud to work.
This means that even when the internet is down, you could still control your smarthome.
And when you control your smarthome locally, it also works faster.
It’s easy for the 2.4 GHz spectrum to get crowded and suffer issues.
Hubitat
Wi-Fi devices, on the other hand, depend on multiple clouds.
The manufacturer of the gadget provides a cloud and a dedicated app.
And if you control your smarthome with Alexa or Google, their cloud is involved, too.
Alexander Kirch/Shutterstock
This means if either side calls it quits, your machine does, too.
We saw this recently when Best Buychose to leavethe smarthome business.
Insignia branded plugs, lightbulbs, and even a smart freezer all lost their smarthome capabilities.
TP-Link
Unfortunately, that’s unavoidable because they’re incredibly powerful and capable of advanced automation.
But that’s not necessarily the case with Wi-Fi devices.
When you do need something more complicated,IFTTTandYonomiwork well with Alexa (butnot Google, unfortunately).
That familiarity gives them a leg up in learning to interact with your smarthome.
Building a smarthome doesn’t have to be expensive, but it can add up.
If you spread out your purchases over time, it softens the blow.
But choosing Wi-Fi due to the lower cost makes sense, too.
That’s why hubs continually release updates for new gear compatibility.
Manufacturers of Wi-Fi devices can rely on APIs provided by Google and Amazon to make everything work together.
That’s less work overall because, at most, they only have to account for two scenarios.
So, Wi-Fi or Z-Wave and ZigBee?
Once you know what you want in your smarthome, the choice becomes obvious.
