Making Home Networking Easier

from the slowly...-but-surely dept

Home automation and home networking are topics that people have been talking about for years - yet always seem to get pushed into the "early adopters only" bin. That might be changing. The main reason isn't so much (as some had originally thought) the desire to do home automation, but the simple fact that more and more households have multiple computers - and want to be able to share network connections and other peripheral devices like printers. The problem, of course, is that home networking for computers is not user-friendly (an understatement). At the same time, consumer electronics companies have been trying out all different methods for simplified home networking, so that now, if you want to wire up your home you have plenty of different confusing standards to pick from, each with their own tradeoffs. However, the two sides are coming together and realizing this is a much bigger market if it can be made easy. So, consumer electronics companies and computer companies are looking for ways to create very easy-to-use, easy-to-understand ways to network a wide variety of home devices. These things will still take time, but it sounds like companies are finally working towards a (mostly) common goal, instead of squabbling over which device is going to be the "hub" of the "smart home".
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.