Since we launched Smart Power Strip last week, many of my friends working in wireless domain asked me the benefits and reason behind selection of Wi-Fi standard over zigbee, 2.4GHz and other wireless options for our home automation product line. Well, this post is to answer that.
In mid-late 2014 when we decided to build Anytime Anywhere control of home/office devices we were also struggling between various wireless standards. However, when we did couple of white boarding sessions, it was not that difficult to choose. Out of many, two were the most prominent reason that motivated us to go with Wi-Fi.
One thing that come out clearly is that, with Wi-Fi, we do not need to install any Gateway at customer premise and our Smart Power Strip can talk to our Smarteefi Cloud directly. Which means “reduced hardware = lower cost for the consumer”.
Second another important point was that we wanted to provide over the air (OTA) firmware upgrades capability on our devices. This was primarily to ensure that if later we implement a new feature in the firmware, we can pass the benefit to existing users who already purchased our devices. Well what would be such feature? we don’t know yet otherwise we would have already implemented it:). It may come via feedback and suggestion from our Smart Power Strip users, however we have infrastructure in place to provide new firmware features to existing users.
