Smart Home, Strong Network: A Comprehensive Overview

Prompt

Part 1: Network Inventory In my house we have several laptops and desktops, a handful of phones and tablets, a few smart TVs, and some game systems. We also have a lot of smart devices, including smart lights throughout the house, speakers in most rooms, and a Ring doorbell, all tied together through Google Home so everything feels connected.​ Part 2: Home Network Topology Physically, the modem is in the first floor office, where it connects into the main router that acts as the core of the network. To get good coverage, there is a router on the first level, another upstairs, and another in the basement, so each floor has strong Wi‑Fi for regular devices and for all the smart home equipment.​ Logically, my home network uses one private subnet such as 192.168.1.0/24, with the main router in the office as the default gateway at 192.168.1.1. All the routers are set up so everything is on one LAN, which lets devices talk to each other across floors while still using that single gateway to reach the internet.​ Part 3: Cables and Media Types Most devices are wireless, but two important ones are wired. My Mac in the basement and my dad’s PC in the office are both on Ethernet, while everything else like the TVs, consoles, phones, tablets, and smart devices uses Wi‑Fi instead.​ Having my Mac on Ethernet matters because I do homework and edit photos there, so I need a fast and stable connection that will not lag or cut out when I am working. My dad’s PC in the office benefits for similar reasons, since a reliable wired link is better than a wireless one for serious work or anything that should not be interrupted.​​ Part 4: Wireless Analysis My Wi‑Fi supports both Wi‑Fi 5 and Wi‑Fi 6, which lets older devices stay connected while newer ones can take advantage of better speed and efficiency. That matters in a house like mine with many smart lights, speakers, phones, and computers, because the newer standard can handle more devices more smoothly.​​ The main Wi‑Fi network name is not visible, so it does not show up as a normal broadcast network in basic scans. There is no separate guest or IoT network, so all of the smart home and regular devices share the same LAN, which makes it easier to manage with Google Home but means everything is on the same segment.​​ Part 5: LAN Performance Reflection From living here, the spot with the weakest coverage is the garage, although that is not a big problem since we rarely need a strong signal there. The basement, first floor, and upstairs, where we actually use the network, usually have good signal because of the routers on each level.​​ The devices that probably use the most bandwidth are my Mac and my dad’s office PC, especially when I am editing photos or streaming and when he is working or doing heavy tasks. When the connection feels slow while a lot is going on, upgrading our internet plan to a faster speed would likely help keep things smoother for everyone at once.​ Part 6: Cybersecurity Checkup My Wi‑Fi uses WPA2 and WPA3 mixed mode, which lets newer devices use stronger WPA3 security while older ones still connect with WPA2. This gives better protection than WPA2 alone, which is important with so many different kinds of devices and smart equipment in one home.​​ We changed the default Wi‑Fi password, and the one we use now is strong and only used for the network, not for any other accounts or services. That makes it harder for anyone to guess their way onto the network or reuse a password from somewhere else to get in.​​ Part 7: Summary Report Overall, my home network is a strong setup that uses a central router and additional routers on each floor to give consistent coverage where we actually need to use it. Using Ethernet for the most important computers and Wi‑Fi 5 and Wi‑Fi 6 for everything else gives a good balance of speed, reliability, and flexibility for school, work, and family time.​​ The main strengths of my network are the wide coverage across all floors, wired connections for the key computers, support for modern Wi‑Fi standards, and solid wireless security settings. The weaker points are the lack of a separate guest or IoT network and the weaker spot in the garage, plus the fact that when one device is pushing a lot of traffic it can affect others, and through this project I learned how much a single high‑bandwidth device can slow things down for everyone else on the same home network.

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