Ways to Secure Your Smart Home

With technology advancing as fast as it does nowadays, many homeowners resort to smart devices and gadgets to add a bit more security to their home and make life easier. The “smart home” is a very popular topic nowadays, and there are actually plenty of benefits that make things a lot easier for everyone.

However, there are also downsides to having a smart home. Just like with any kind of technology, there may be a way for people to gain access that you don’t like, and your home’s security will be severely compromised.

So, how do you avoid this and ensure home security? How do you reap the benefits of a smart home, without losing sleep over whether your home is secure enough or not?

Have your wireless network be as secure as possible

One thing that all smart devices have in common is that they’re all connected to your home’s network. This is what makes them so convenient, which allows them to communicate with each other, and what allows you to communicate with them wherever you are. And it’s also their biggest flaw. If someone does happen to gain access to your home network with malicious intent, they may disable, or at the very least cripple the functionality of your smart home.

There are a few things that you can do to prevent this, and they’re pretty simple. First and foremost, you’ll want to have WPA or WPA2 set up, depending on what your router supports. WPA2 is a more secure authentication method, and is much more difficult to crack. To add to that, you should always have a strong and complicated password that you’ll be able to remember, but others won’t be able to guess.

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The other thing you can do is have multiple wireless networks. You can have one that you use at home – your family could log on to it, but nobody else. That’s also the one you could use for your smart devices, but remember not to allow anyone outside of your family access to it. For them, you can set up a guest network on most routers that has nothing to do with your main network. A guest network can also be limited so you can prevent your kid’s friend from using up all your bandwidth when they’re around.

Last but not least, change your ISP’s router. While some providers give you secure routers with plenty of options, you can always opt for a different one that’s more secure or feature-rich, and have peace of mind that your wireless network is for you, and only for you.

Make sure a power outage can’t do too much harm

Like it or not, power outages do happen. And when they do, you’ve got a host of devices that are out of power, thus leaving them vulnerable and exposed. Fortunately, there are a few things you can do to combat this, especially if you have yet to buy your smart home devices.

First things first, try to get devices that have a backup battery inside. Doorbells and smart locks usually have one, but you should try to get surveillance cameras that have a battery too, regardless of how small it is. This way, even if there is a power outage, they’ll continue working without any issues until they run out of battery. Yes, that’s more batteries to keep track of and make sure are charged, but it’s very much worth it.

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The other thing is to have your router, and the hub where all your video recordings go, connected to a UPS. An uninterruptible power supply can keep electronic devices that are plugged into it running for a while even if there’s no electricity. How long depends on the devices and the capacity of your UPS, but a router and a hub don’t use up too much, so something small should do.

As you see, things are actually simpler than you may think

If you’ve got smart home devices, you absolutely must pay attention to your home security. A small neglect on your end, such as leaving an insecure network, can be a way for burglars to get inside your home, which is something you want to avoid at all costs.

However, as you see above, keeping your smart home security is actually pretty simple, as long as you pay attention to a couple of small things. Making sure your network is secure is step one, and keeping things running in case of an outage is step two, and that’s about it.

Make sure you don’t compromise on these two security aspects, though. Even if it takes you a day to set things up, and it costs a bit more than expected, it’s your home’s security we’re talking about, and it’s more than worth it.