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If you want to have a smart home filled with connective 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 Home.
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After living in a regular sized house or a small apartment, your existing Wi-Fi network is probably more than fine for smart home gadgets.
But this is a large property, 40,000 square feet and we wanna cover every inch of it with really reliable Wi-Fi That means that we have got work to do.
So what we are doing now is mapping out the strength of the signal across the entire property.
There are a lot of software out there that will do this.
We are using a free app called Netspot.
And after walking the entire property, I was able to collect the data from that software and produce this map.
Which shows exactly where 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 router's 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 we want to get a signal out here, we're gonna need to boost its strength.
Fortunately, we have a plan.
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New hardware.
CNET router guru, Dom Go, recommended this ASUS model for its wide coverage.
We'll install one as our main router and a second one as a repeater.
Okay, let's get to work.
Alright.
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All right.
Let's see if our cupboard is approved.
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And 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 hardwire connection straight to a router, but that's coming later so be sure to check back in the coming months.
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If you have any questions about the products we're testing or the tools we're using, check us out on Twitter @cnetsmarthome.
Here at the Cnet smart house is Steve Conaway.
I'm Ryan Crist, we'll see you next time.
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