this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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But that is not a fault of WiFi as a medium, but rather of the ecosystem of devices as we know them. Some company might launch a "Home Automation WiFi" product, which would be simply a home hub with a builtin WiFi router pre-configured with the recommended security settings. Zero config nor admin work required, just buy the right (hypothetical) hub.
Though the real problem is that every other device relies on cloud connectivity, which highly limits such hubs effectiveness. Again, that isn't an inherent fault of how WiFi works, rather I see it as a problem with the ecosystem and how consumers want their devices to work without any hub. Hopefully with more local-only devices that trend can still be reversed.
but it is a fault of WiFi as a choice for that application. Just because it does wireless communication doesn't mean it's suited for any application that needs a wireless protocol. Using it for very-low traffic applications is simply not what it was designed to do, and it has significant negative effects if you do. Any device you add basically slows down any other device by a bit. And wifi network you add in a physical area decreases the effectiveness of all other wifi networks in it's vicinity. In even medium densly populated areas, wifi is already borderline unusable due to congestion. Your proposed (dedicated) hub is a good idea for network isolation, assuming it's designed and configured correctly, but that also comes with more and frankly just as bad security implications, just different ones. To be clear, having like a light bulb or two wifi is a fine choice. For 50 or a whole smart home network, it no longer is.
Both Zigbee and Matter do not rely on cloud connectivity as a protocol, though many of the manufacturers implementations do effectly add that on top: you get the exact solution you propose here as well. At least with these standards you can control everyhing locally, if you want to, and you don't congest the spectrum nearly as much as wifi does.
What do you have in mind? Surely, no solution is perfect, but at least on the surface it sounds much better than the alternative of no isolation at all, so I'd love to learn what worries you.
If I'm gonna install a device by some random manufacturer that acts as a wifi access point inside my network, I also give them full access to my network. That access point can do all sorts of things, and I would describe this as a security nightmare. It also doesn't even have to be malicious: the manufacturer could get hacked, and now the hacker has access to all these wifi access points all over the world, and all their home networks. Fun.