Why does the smart home need fiber to the home connectivity?

The Ethernet cable has been around for over 35 years. It is difficult to remember a time when you could use either your house phone or the internet via a dial-up connection. This changed when you could use both at the same time but still with an Ethernet cable. The cable got better in terms of speed and reliability. Then we switched over to Wi-Fi and modified Maslow’s pyramid to put Wi-Fi as a basic need. While wireless connectivity is great, the internet is faster when data passes through a cable. With every iteration of the Ethernet cable, the aim is to improve upon the speed and reliability.

Devices we use nowadays run on the internet. Our use of the internet is so much that we have refrigerators with screens and smart ovens that have cameras to see how much your food has cooked.

As our dependency on the internet increases, so does our need for speed and reliability. This is where the new type of cable comes in: fiber optic cable.

Fiber optic cable has a strand of pure glass that can transmit light. It can cover great distances because the coating around the glass strand does not absorb any. Light reflects internally in a phenomenon called "total internal reflection".

Since light travels faster than electric current, a fiber optic cable can transmit data faster than copper cables. It transmits data at speeds of 1000 Mbps, or one Gbps, therefore, called gigabit internet. It makes promises (and comes through) of never having to wait for videos to buffer, never having your video call freeze awkwardly and getting an edge over your fellow gamers.

Gigabit internet is truly for the future. And the future is the Internet of Things. IoT devices popularly work on the IFTTT (If This Then That) protocol. One action triggers the next. This is how our routine tasks happen. This concept of routines translates to technology. A connected home routine is for your digital assistant to execute, or rather help execute. Your digital assistant is a central hub for all your smart devices. Let us look at some examples of how these routines work:

Morning Routine:

A standard morning routine triggers when you turn off your alarm. Then a pre-selected playlist plays, while your smart plug connected coffee maker turns itself on. After that, your digital assistant reads out the top news (based on your interests) to you. Lastly, it will tell you about your appointments and events for the day, the weather and commute time to work and sends the directions to your phone for navigation.

Safety Routine/Leave The Home Routine:

When you are ready to leave for work, you can trigger the leaving home routine with simple phrases like "leaving now", or "I am leaving", to your digital assistant. The smart home hub device then takes necessary, predefined steps to secure your house. Once you step out of the door, your smart door lock locks itself; your appliances like the coffee maker, air conditioner, toaster, and TV turn off. At last, your smart shades shut and your security camera monitors everything.

The advantage of this is that if you forget to turn any device off, you won’t have to rush back home. It will automatically turn off or you can turn it off remotely if connected to a smart plug. The important thing is that your home hub device should connect to everything in your house.

Come Back/Evening Routine:

On your way back home, you can trigger actions with phrases like, "I am home" or "I am back". This can happen after you unlock your main door with a secure pin or key. After the trigger phrase, actions can start unfolding, with the shades opening. Then your evening playlist can start playing while you start cooking dinner and then the lights come on as the sunsets.

• Evenings are times when we indulge in recreational activities. So, you can easily build game night, movie night or party routines as well, which can set the right music, and lighting, if not more.

Night Routine:

At the end of the day, your night routine can trigger based on a phrase or set by a specific time. Your door will lock, the music will stop, and your thermostat will adjust to your ideal sleep temperature.

As the flow of these routines suggests, all the devices require constant and speedy internet connection, which a fiber optic cable promises to deliver. And with increasing devices, if you want to maintain speed, you need your house connection to switch to the fiber optic Ethernet cable.

SF Cable offers a wide variety of fiber optic cables to choose from based on your requirements. You can browse them here. For any other queries regarding this cable or any other Ethernet cable, you can contact us.

Jennifer Truong is the owner of SF Cable, a california based online retailer of all kind of Computers, electronics, electrical accessories, networking accessories, cables, wires. Jennifer has extensive experience in the Electronics industry and blog.