The Right Wi-Fi Router for your Smart Home

March 5, 2021

Choosing the right Wi-Fi router can be hard work, but it is a crucial part of any smart home. A great Wi-Fi router is important so all your smart home devices, including smart switches, can wirelessly connect to the internet. In this blog, we are going to list some common features, explain them, and try to help you with your decision to purchase the right router for your smart home.

Single-Band, Dual-Band or Tri-Band Router

The band means the frequency of the radio waves that carry the data. Two frequencies are used - 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.

Frequency

Single-Band - Covers 2.4 GHz
Dual-Band - Covers 2.4 GHz & 5 GHz
Tri-Band - Covers 2.4 GHz & two 5 GHz

Single-Band

Older technology
Vulnerable to interference from electronic devices such as microwaves, mobile phone, Wi-Fi hotspots etc.
Slower data speed compared to other bands

Dual-Band

Faster data speed
Both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands are available for more devices
5 GHz band avoids interference from other electronic devices

Tri-Band

Even faster data speed
Supports a lot more devices
Different devices can be allocated to different bands for better performance

Our smart switches will work in the 2.4 GHz band, however, we recommend purchasing at least dual-band routers for best performance.

Router Processor & Memory

Better performance requires a better processor and a better memory.

We recommend routers with at least dual-core processors and more than 128 MB of RAM.

IEEE 802.11b/g/n

IEEE is Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. It is the standard.
802.11 is the first Wireless Standard that supported 2 Mbps of speed
802.11b is the next standard that supported 11 Mbps of speed
802.11g supports 54 Mbps of speed with good signal quality
802.11n supports 300 Mbps of speed with even better signal quality
802.11ac is a dual-band technology supporting both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequencies
802.11ac offers better performance with more connections and faster speed
802.11ax improves on 802.11ac and provides more speed and better availability for concurrent connections

We recommend a minimum of IEEE 802.11b/g/n standard or 802.11ac for dual-band, including smart switches.

Mesh Routers

Mesh routers connect to each other and provide the same SSID (wireless name) across a large area. It can be bought as a single router and extended to 5 or more devices, thereby increasing the coverage area as and when you add more units. Mesh routers such as the one provided by Google, not only provide good wireless coverage but also come built with speakers and Google Assistant, increasing the utility of standard routers and making them an excellent addition to a smart home.

We recommend Google mesh routers for large smart homes and smart switches.