Just like our phones, our home are becoming smart. To make them smart they are being fitted with:

• smart switches
• smart lights
• smart Locks
• etc

These once normal household devices are being made smart by connecting them together over a network, and then to the Internet.

Because most Homes built today aren’t smart they will be made smart incrementally,by adding smart devices to solve present day problems

Perhaps you might need to install a security system, so you install a smart security system.

Later you want to integrate it with your lights so you install a smart lighting system.

In order to do this you will need a basic understanding of networking and how, or if, they can be connected to each other.

About This Site

The aim of this site is to help you :

• Learn and understand Home Networking basics
• Understand how these smart devices connect to each other and how they work.
• Understand the technology and protocols found in a smart home.
• Solve common home networking and home automation problems
• Install and Setup home automation systems.

Getting Started

In order to build a smart home you will need to understanding how to setup a home network and how it works. – See Smart Home Networking

Recommended Reading

• Beginners guide to home Automation
• Internal and External IP Addresses
• What is Dynamic DNS (DDNS)? -and Why Use It?
• Introduction To Alexa and Amazon Echo

Questions

If you have any questions please ask

Best Regards Steve

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• Static IP address
• DNS settings
• Gateway Settings
• Wi-Fi Settings

Being Linux then there are several commands and configuration files that need to be used/edited. (more…)

If you are  looking at:

• Getting Familiar with Smart Home APis
• Learning how to control smart home devices
• Developing dashboards for smart home control
• etc

The you should find this smart home simulator useful. (more…)

How reliable is your internet connection? Do you often experience drop outs?

In this node-red project we will create a Node-Red dashboard to monitor your Internet connection and log outages.

The standard way of testing your internet connection is to use the ping command. (more…)

A smart home device can be considered to be made up of three major Components.

• Connectivity
• Control Protocol
• Control App and API

(more…)

How do you control your smart home device?

Well regardless of the wireless technology (Wi-Fi,ZigBee etc) or the application protocol (HTTP or MQTT) it is using, it is controlled via an API (Application Programming Interface). (more…)