Gadgetory

if you want to have a smart home filled with connected gadgets in each and every room you're gonna need a strong Wi-Fi signal and that's one of the first challenges that we'll tackle as we turn this house into the CNET smart Oh now if you're living in a regular-sized house or a small apartment your existing Wi-Fi network is probably more than fine for smartphone gadgets but this is a large property 40,000 square feet and we want to cover every inch of it with really reliable Wi-Fi that means that we've got work to do so what we're doing now is mapping out the strength of the signal across the entire property there's a lot of software out there that'll do this we're using a free app called net spot and after walking the entire property I was able to collect the data from that software and produce this map which shows exactly where our Wi-Fi coverage needs improvement the signal is pretty weak here in the living room the master bedroom bathroom and closet as well as the northeast corner of the property our biggest obstacle to overcome is the routers location it's right back there and that's a good spot it gives out a pretty good signal for most of the house but there are a lot of walls and that causes interference especially out here in the yard if you want to get a signal out here we're gonna need to boost its strength fortunately we have a plan new hardware see that router guru Daum go recommended this Asus model for its wide coverage will install one is our main router at a second one as a repeater okay let's get to work all right let's see if our covering is improved so there you go just a couple of improvements have really helped improve the Wi-Fi situation it's a big house and a big property but we can feel confident now that wherever we put a connected device it'll have a strong Wi-Fi connection there's just one exception one room we still need to work on down here in the basement where we'll be installing an amazing home theater system for that we'll run a hardwired connection straight to a router but that's coming later so be sure to check back in the coming months if you have any questions about the products were testing or the tools were using check us out on Twitter at CMS smart home here at the scene that smart house with Steve Conaway I'm Rui Crist we'll see you next time you