How many connected devices do you have at home?
By @edent
· internet IoT Smart Home wifi · 4 comments · 300 words · read ~414 times.
Five years ago, I wrote that I had 30 connected devices at home. How has that changed over the last half-decade?
Some of my devices have consolidated. My Eufy security cameras have a hub - so despite having more cameras, They're using fewer IP addresses. Similarly, I've replaced most of my LIFX bulbs with Zigbee which also use a hub-and-spoke model.
So these are the devices I currently have connected:
- Video Doorbell
- Solar Battery
- LIFX bulb in external light
- Security camera
- EInk display
- Alexa
- Robot vacuum cleaner / mop
- TV
- Android TV box
- Amazon Fire TV stick
- Chromecast
- Internet Connected Record Player (yes! Really!)
- PS4
- Nintendo Switch
- AV Amplifier
- Another Alexa
- Home server
- Eufy Cameras Hub
- Philips Hue Light Hub
- Internal LIFX bulb
- Smart heating control
- Office TV
- Wife's work laptop
- Wife's personal laptop
- Wife's phone
- My work laptop
- My personal laptop
- My phone
- My tablet
- Power strip
- Lifx lamp
- Internet connected plasma ball
- Gym TV
- Another robot vacuum cleaner
- Internet connected electric blanket (my side)
- Internet connected electric blanket (her side)
- Solar panel inverter
We have a lot of smarthome kit! I've probably forgotten some. And I haven't counted my various Raspberries Pi and obsolete computers. But we're only a family of two. Larger families are likely to have more phones, tablets, and many other devices.
Is the future the "hub" model? Most of these devices don't need a power-hungry WiFi connection. Keep the airwaves clear for high-bandwidth devices and move everything to ZigBee or similar?
Either way, the number of devices in a typical home is only going to increase. What do we need to do to prepare for that?
laptop, phone, xbox. I think the sky box can, but never got round to it. A little limited...
Ethernet: 12 Wireless: - 2.4 GHz: 23 - 5 GHz: 7
Alex Gibson says:
47 - but this is cheating, as it includes 30+ Raspberry Pi's used for my business to monitor and control 3D printers, and climate control in my workshop. Apart from them, 4 PCs, a couple of laptops, phones, tablet, Sky box, one smart TV.
How do you manage the potential for one of the many devices on the network to be insecure or even malicious? I'd be interested to read just about that! I've actually got a lot fewer installed IoT devices than I'd like because I've not yet set up the parallel untrusted network I planned, which awaits three Amazon Echo Dots and several Sonoff switch relays, because I don't want them sharing a network with my customers' I.P.
Paul Webster says:
Right now ... 54 plus 3 Zigbee but I know some (eg TV, BluRay) not included as switched completely off.