As an early adopter of the smart home and all it promised, the reality, in the cold, hard light of day, is that it was overpromised and under-executed. Automation is mostly functional, if you pick the right controller to make it all work. Devices use a mix of protocols for communication, and often fall back on 2.4GHz Wi-Fi for connectivity, as the longer range and cheaper chips make it attractive.

We all know that more Wi-Fi devices on our networks slow down laptops and phones that can't use other connectivity options and benefit more from lower-latency comms. Logic would follow that removing smart home devices from Wi-Fi would make everything better, and they could be wired or using other communications protocols instead. But is that possible? I did a little bit of digging, and a little bit more testing, and it's (mostly) possible, but it'll be a costly change for most people's setups.

Can the modern smart home run without Wi-Fi?

The answer is "kinda, maybe, it depends"

When I first started adding smart devices to my home, the choices were Bluetooth or Wi-Fi for connectivity. There were very few Ethernet-connected devices, and a unified Power-over-Ethernet standard that was being used by manufacturers was a way in the future.

The picture is much different nowadays, with a handful of connectivity standards to choose from, plenty of PoE devices to make hardwiring easier, and devices being designed for local-first control, so any cloud control is a secondary consideration. That's good for you if you want your Wi-Fi to be smart device-free. Still, it's slightly complicated by the fact that no manufacturer has a full top-to-bottom product range, and some standards, like Zigbee, allow proprietary parts to be built on top of the standard, making interconnectivity more difficult.

The real question is "how much do you want to spend?" because every solution that avoids Wi-Fi means you'll need to replace existing hardware, buy hubs and repeaters to ensure signal propagation across your home, and set things up so nothing is too far away from the others.

Oh, and you still have to worry about Wi-Fi interference. Thread and Wi-Fi use the same RF path; Zigbee and Wi-Fi both operate in the 2.4GHz band, making things more challenging to design around.

Home Assistant helps

Home Assistant is fantastic for centralizing control of your smart home, regardless of the communication protocols those devices use. You'll need to pick up some accessories if you want to use Thread, Zigbee, Z-Wave, or other non-wired communication methods, but you can absolutely reduce your reliance on Wi-Fi if you plan correctly.

There are plenty of other wireless standards to use

Zigbee, Z-Wave, Thread, 432Hz, Bluetooth: they all have their part to play

When I first started thinking about cutting Wi-Fi out, probably like most of you, I thought I'd have to wire everything in. But that's just not feasible, at least not for self-installation. There are systems like the One Smart Control that use your existing electrical wiring for signals, with the smart controller plugged into your breaker box, but those are at the smart home integrator level, where it's "pay someone to make it happen."

But you can stay wireless in many ways without using Wi-Fi, and then it's just a case of getting the sensors and devices you want, getting the hubs and repeaters you need, and plugging it all in. Except some things need to be plugged in a certain way, like Zigbee works best if you add the hub, then the repeater devices, then the end devices (starting with the ones closest to the hub and moving outward).

It's more of a pain than simply setting up your Wi-Fi network and connecting to it, but there's every chance it will be more stable once set up. And you'll want to try and stick to one standard, which makes Z-Wave and Matter trickier to use, as they don't support every device. I'm not sure Zigbee does either, but things like cameras are best wired.

But not every manufacturer is on board

As long as there are cheap Wi-Fi chips, there will be cheap smart home devices taking the easy option. Sure, you need an app to get the Wi-Fi credentials onto the device, but then you shouldn't have to worry about it unless you change the SSID. But that also means you're permanently letting something onto your Wi-Fi, something that might not get security updates, or any updates, which is a big reason why we say you should segregate IoT devices onto their own network segment.

And there still isn't a single manufacturer that makes cameras, doorbells, thermostats, lighting, security sensors, and the myriad of other smart home devices that you'll want, including your garage door, which one or two big companies jealously guard.

It's still tricky to cut Wi-Fi out of the equation

While many smart home devices can be hardwired or use specialized communication protocols to avoid cluttering your Wi-Fi, the fact is that it's almost impossible to remove Wi-Fi from the smart home. Whether it's to use the control apps on your smartphone, update firmware, or communicate with cloud servers, there are many reasons Wi-Fi can't entirely be removed from your smart home, but it's closer than you might think. And a little bit of careful planning when you buy your hardware could mean fewer Wi-Fi enabled devices chattering away while you're trying to stream movies to your laptop.