4 innocuous smart home gadgets that are quietly congesting your Wi-Fi network

Running an efficient smart home can be difficult to achieve. While we like to think that smart homes are going to make our lives easier, sometimes the opposite can occur. Whether you realize that a smart home gadget is not actually worth it for you or you don’t get the features that you like from one, it can be frustrating to have to pull the plug, literally, on the smart home integration.

But there are plenty of smart home gadgets and devices that you can use for a while and enjoy the perks of having them. However, they can have unforeseen consequences in your home. Most smart home devices have to connect to your Internet connection, meaning they are going to jump on your Wi-Fi network. That also means that they are going to take up a lot of bandwidth. Here are some smart home gadgets that you might not realize are clogging up your network.

Your security cameras take up a lot

They protect you, but at what cost?

Security cameras are a great investment for your home. They can provide you with monitoring around your home, giving you peace of mind while you’re away. You can set motion alerts to know when someone is outside or inside your home.

I have a full set of Ring security cameras. I have a few around my home, including a Ring Pan-Tilt camera in my office to keep an eye on my dog when we are away. I also have a wired Ring Video Doorbell on the front door and on the garage, which were installed by the person who owned the home before me. For our backyard, we installed a Ring Spotlight camera that not only provides a view of any motion in the backyard but also activates a spotlight when it’s dark outside.

I really like Ring, and I’ve used the cameras for a few years and can’t complain much about the service. Being able to tap into feeds has been a great stress reducer, as we can see when packages have arrived or know when someone might be delivering something. As a new parent, it was a huge bonus to know if someone was delivering something while the baby was sleeping, as I could go meet them at the door and not have them ring the doorbell.

But with all of these cameras, the Wi-Fi strength struggles to reach some of the areas of my home. Not only that, but it also slows down the Wi-Fi a bit. But I had to install a Ring Chime Pro, which is a Wi-Fi extender to assist the home network. It has been a big help, but it does show how much bandwidth these cameras can take up.

Anything using a constant feed and uploading videos regularly is going to use more Wi-Fi than devices that aren’t constantly running.

Smart TVs can be a big drain

It also depends on how much you’re using them

Do you constantly have your smart TV on? Just like anything connected to the Internet, if it’s running, it will use some of your Wi-Fi at any given time. Smart TVs and anything that requires a lot of video streaming can clog up your Wi-Fi network. Having multiple smart TVs on at one time can affect your Wi-Fi’s speed, potentially slowing down your streaming buffer.

If you have a good Internet package, you don’t need to worry a lot about this, especially if you don’t have many devices hooked up to it at all times. But it’s when your network is filled with devices always on that it can cause the network to slow down.

You may not even think that your Wi-Fi is being used by your TV when you’re watching cable, or you’re just using it to show a picture, like with Roku Backdrops or on a Samsung Frame TV. But there are always processes running in the background of a smart TV, gathering data and trying to learn more to better customize your experience. This all adds up to causing a drain on your network.

If you’re streaming 4K video, the usage of bandwidth is going to increase compared to streaming at lower resolutions. So, the more you want to watch content that looks better, the more your Wi-Fi will be used.

Smart speakers can chip away at your Wi-Fi

These do a bit of damage

Is one smart speaker that you use occasionally going to affect your Wi-Fi a lot? Probably not. But if you have several smart speakers that can communicate with one another and are constantly listening for commands, your Wi-Fi could slow down a bit.

These aren’t the biggest consumers of bandwidth, especially since they sit dormant for periods of time throughout the day. But if yours is always on and streaming music, for instance, it will consistently be using the Internet. A friend of mine shared her Spotify Wrapped for the year, and she had listened to over 30,000 minutes of Taylor Swift. When I asked her how she possibly listened to over three weeks’ worth of music from one artist, she said she leaves it playing all day for her dogs while she’s away.

If you have a good Internet package, you don’t need to worry a lot about this, especially if you don’t have many devices hooked up to it at all times. But it’s when your network is filled with devices always on that it can cause the network to slow down.

If you’re like her, your Wi-Fi will be in constant use. Smart speakers can also use up bandwidth if they are used as smart displays, showing calendars or other agendas frequently. Another way that your smart speaker consumes a lot of your Wi-Fi is by using it to show a feed from a security camera or to video call others from it.

Gaming consoles can clog up the network

This isn’t unsuspected for many, but is still important to consider

Whether you have a gaming console or a gaming computer whose primary focus is helping you connect to the Wi-Fi and play online video games, it’s going to use up bandwidth. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who is a gamer, as people pay good money to have updated equipment in order to have zero lag on their network.

Gamers are looking for a competitive edge, and not having a strong signal or having speeds that are slow is going to minimize their chances of being successful. This is especially the case when playing online games, so you have to connect to a network in order to use the game. It’s different from consoles, where you own the game and can just attach it to your TV and turn it on.

Some may ask how a gaming console could be considered a smart home device. There are built-in gaming hubs in smart TVs that allow users to stream games directly from their TVs. This incorporates the smart home device as well as the gaming aspects.

Gaming streamers also need good Wi-Fi because not only are they playing video games, but they are also streaming a feed of themselves playing games to others, causing more network congestion. This will not be an issue for some people, but for others, it’s a large part of their lives.

Make sure you have good Wi-Fi

It can be hard to keep up with all the devices connected to your home network. When you’re making your home a better version of itself by upgrading to smart home devices, your Wi-Fi network will be in steady use. Some devices you may predict will have a drain on your network, while others you may not have realized can cause congestion. Having a good Internet plan and a balance of light, moderate, and heavy Wi-Fi usage will go a long way.