It’s becoming increasingly difficult to purchase home entertainment products that don’t include an RJ45 ethernet socket and/or a WiFi antenna. Once the stuff of the purely specialist custom installation industry, the notion that products can be controlled by phone or tablet and are plugged into the internet is now the norm.
We’ve heard the term ‘convergence’ banded around for some time now. I think I first heard it back in 2000 when a colleague brought his PC Windows Media Centre into the office and showed off the streaming of music to a hi-fi. It was clunky at that time, but as with all technologies the offering has been honed and enhanced and now the use of computers, networks and handheld devices is the way we access our entertainment media. It’s no longer the domain of the geek.
Convergence will continue apace as the much-vaunted internet of things (IoT) takes hold – the so-called smart home. The music, the TV, the gaming, the doorbell, the security system, the lights and even the fridge will no longer be stand-alone items. They’ll be interconnected and interoperable and we need to be ready for this strange new world.
Getting the home network infrastructure right is key to making all this work. One of the most common causes of failures we see is because of network issues. Relying on the cheap router that was supplied free by the phone company is a recipe for disaster – there’s a reason why it was free!
We all know just how frustrating it can be when our wireless slows down or drops out, interrupting our browsing time or Netflix stream. Add control of the IoT devices, the need to stream high-resolution material, plus the demands from the kids’ online gaming and it is easy to see why home wireless networks just aren’t up to the job.
We just expect things to work, which makes us intolerant of issues that arise within the home network. The simple fact is that wires are best or, at the very least, use ethernet over mains to overcome the problems that are down to poor wireless – it simply doesn’t like thick walls or foil backed plasterboard. Best of all, get the network experts in to put a robust system in place – you won’t regret it. Give us a call.
