Key Tips for Future-Proofing Your Smart Home Technology

Key Tips for Future-Proofing Your Smart Home Technology

What is it with technology? It seems as soon as you buy something and bring it home, there’s something better out there. It’s this fast and every-changing nature of technology that can make choosing a smart home technology system a fearful prospect. It can be a substantial investment, so you want to be sure that things can be upgraded and replaced without ripping the house apart.

The good new is that there are ways you can help alleviate much of that fear.

Recently we had the pleasure of welcoming smart home technology specialist, Jonathan Krywicki, on the Spaces podcast. Jon is the man with the plan and, during our conversation, he shared his top tips for future-proofing your smart home technology, so that you can upgrade as you need to, while keeping the expense and hassle to a minimum.

Focus on A Plan, Rather Than A Gadget

Many people go about setting up a smart home technology system the wrong way. They start by finding a gadget that they like and then attempt to lever it into a system, rather than starting with a plan.

“If you’re looking to just buy gadgets, you’re forever going to be caught in that loop,” Jonathan says. “To me, technology is about solving a problem. At the end of the day, it’s serving a fundamental purpose. Whether that’s about feeling safe and secure in your home, or making it easier to get out of the house when you’ve got young kids and turning all the things off in your home. So you really want to understand the overarching purpose, and then you can dictate how technology serves its role,” he says.

Get Your Networking Right

Jonathan suggests getting your data networking right is crucial. “I look at it as infrastructure,” he says. “Before you can have cool technology, you’ve got to get your networking, your wireless, your internet all down pat. And that means commercial grade wifi generally, or something that’s got really good single-strength signal,” Jonathan explains.

A good router is also essential, “because you can imagine with all these connected devices in your home, your average Telstra, Optus or whatever modem it might be, the router in there just isn’t designed to handle that much traffic as you’re pushing through it. So get your networking right,” Jonathan says.  

If you have the opportunity to run data cabling in your home, do so is Jonathan’s advice.

Pick Your Ecosystem

Another key piece of Jonathan’s advice is choose a technology ecosystem. It’s about deciding, “am I on Google, am I on Amazon, am I on Apple,” Jonathan says. “ And once you’ve got that system, you’re sort of buying into what I call their ecosystem. It’s a lot easier then to not worry about missing out or always keeping up with the latest because you’re investing in that platform,” he says. “Get the infrasture right, get the building blocks right, and then as you need to upgrade do so, but I think you’ve just got to keep a level head and not get so concerned by always looking to upgrade and getting the latest new feature when they don’t really make that much of a difference in the big scheme of things.”

Jonathan adds this important piece of advice. “Whichever system you’re investing in, you also need to understand that every few years you’re going to be upgrading your technology. You have to sort of plan that every few years, if you do want these new features and benefits, you are going to have to upgrade. Again, if you’re investing in an ecosystem then you just need to make sure you get the right building blocks to begin with, so it’s easy just to add that camera, add that smart doorbell, add that smart lock, as time goes by,” Jonathan explains.

Hear the entire conversation with Jonathan Krywicki here.