How to create a truly connected smart home

The smart home has come a long way since the days of clap-on lighting. Now that so many of the household items and appliances we use every day are equipped for Wi-Fi, people want more — the ability to simply turn on and off their technology from a smartphone isn’t enough.

Today’s smart home users desire a complete and intuitive system. They want a smart home that comes together on a simple and functional user interface, with connectivity that is free from glitches and headaches.

In this next stage of the smart home, users are seeking companies that can serve that full experience, leaning on technology makers like TP-Link — which not only provides network devices, but has a full suite of smart home products — to equip a truly connected home.

“The surge of devices has coincided with a need for better internet speeds,” says Jeff Barney, president of TP-Link Systems, Inc. “People need better speed, they need stability, and they need to be able to connect to multiple devices at the same time.”

In this age where every new purchase seems to necessitate an app download, TP-Link is simplifying the smart home.

With a range of products across its Deco and Tapo sub brands, the company offers a more seamless path to equipping a home. Where most brands in the smart home space specialize in a single category, TP-Link provides a one-stop shop for a complete smart home. Its offerings include:

A smart home is only as effective as its network allows. The technology in our homes today not only encompasses a wide variety of connected devices, but it also takes up a significant amount of physical space — from indoor cameras to outdoor security and connected doorbells. From a connectivity standpoint, that presents a challenge — devices far from the home’s main router may experience a slow connection or high latency, which can make it difficult to efficiently capture and review audio and video, configure settings, or interact with the system.

“It’s changed a lot,” Barney says. “The integration of smart devices with the connection that makes them all work has become more and more important over the last 10 years.”

Facilitating that integration is the fact that users are increasingly ditching their single-point routers in favor of a mesh node system, strategically placing Wi-Fi nodes across their property to eliminate dead spots. TP-Link’s Deco series of mesh network devices can work just as well inside the house or placed outside. Its outdoor waterproof nodes, for example, work to extend coverage to a pool or weather-exposed backyard. That extendable configurability helps homeowners fully equip their properties with security cameras, as well.

TP-Link, too, has put a focus on making products easy to set up and fine-tune, with an app that communicates signal strength. The company’s knowledge of how various devices communicate with each other, Barney says, provides a leg up as it creates a cohesive system. “I think there’s a big advantage to us owning that whole experience,” he says.

Then there’s the way in which TP-Link delivers its products, utilizing a vertical integration approach that Barney says has been a key to providing top-of-market performance with competitive pricing. The Irvine, California-based company designs its own products, develops its own software, and manufactures its own hardware in-house.

“It creates an incredible competitive advantage,” Barney says. “We can see the trends in the market and be able to pivot the product, to add features, to change features, to bring a new product to market very quickly.”

Meanwhile, companies that utilize third-party original design manufacturers, or ODMs, are often subject to minimum commitments on certain products and face longer lead times, Barney says. Smart home products share space at ODMs with products of larger scale, like PCs or smartphones, giving them less leverage to gain contracts favorable to agility.

“We were the first to have (Wi-Fi 7) on retailer shelves — almost six months ahead of everybody else,” Barney says. “That’s because of our ability to take the chipsets designed by Broadcom and Qualcomm and the rest, and be able to use our own engineers to make them ready for devices.”

Artificial intelligence may well prove to be the next proof point for the importance of vertical integration. An almost certain driver of significant industry advancement in coming years, the technology could soon be equipping smart home users with even more context and information. Barney envisions, for instance, a world in which a doorbell camera could alert you not just that someone is at your door, but who that person is — that it’s your neighbor, Jane, or your brother, Jack. AI could also lead to a more human smart home, he says, as users may soon be able to speak in normal terms to their technology to create the bedtime or morning routines they want. He hints that TP-Link is lining up some announcements about AI integration for later this year.

“Frankly, the smart home hasn’t been that smart,” he says. “It’s been smart on a relative basis from 10 years ago, but I think AI is really going to fulfill the vision of the smart home. It’s going to be a non-intrusive, intuitive home that just works for you, without having to learn technology or struggle with an app.”