Five Ways to Prep Your Smart Home for the Holidays

With the holidays just around the corner, you’re undoubtedly getting ready to ring in all the cheer—and preparing for the end-of-the-year rush!

Of course, the holidays also mean more guests, your kids staying home on break from school, and more family time in the house wrapping presents, baking, and decorating.

All of this leads to more people using more devices which means more bandwidth use straining your internet. With the holidays already a stressful and jam-packed period, you may be asking yourself if there are any steps you can take to prevent your internet from being overwhelmed. And you may be interested in how to put your internet to better use for your home this festive time of year.

Fortunately, there are some things you can do to improve your internet during the holiday rush. And SR Connect’s high-speed fiber internet already means you’ve got access to greater bandwidth to handle the increased internet needs of all the excess streaming devices.

We’ve prepared the following guide to help you prepare for your home’s holiday internet use surge.

Tip One: Check your Internet Plan’s Speeds—and Optimize Them

The first thing you should consider if you’re concerned about your internet being overwhelmed during the holidays is to ensure you’ve optimized or maxed out your internet service plan’s speed.

With fiber internet, this usually means you can go to at least one gigabit per second, which should be more than enough to handle even the busiest households.

While a slower internet speed might ordinarily be fine for just one or two people, with several more guests over the holidays—and all of their devices—an increase in your internet plan’s maximum speed will help reduce those dreaded slowdowns and streaming freeze-ups.

Tip 2: Establish a Guest Wi-Fi Network

Setting up guest Wi-Fi will greatly enhance everyone’s internet speed and usage. Most routers allow you to create a separate guest network. A guest network lets your visitors stream and game more efficiently while keeping your usual network less stressed—which will help reduce your stress, too!

Tip 3: Don’t Forget to Download Your Favorites

Although you’re accustomed to the convenience of streaming music, movies, and TV, you might want to take a few minutes to download some of the content you know you’ll want to enjoy during the holidays before your guests arrive.

For example, Spotify lets you download music, including your playlists. So rather than streaming Bing Crosby and other Christmas crooners, download your favorite holiday music playlists and scratch that streaming need (and internet usage) off your list!

Additionally, some streaming movie services let you download movies and TV shows. Check out your subscription packages to see if you can download as many of your favorite holiday classics to your devices and save more of your Wi-Fi for all your other internet needs.

Tip 4: Step-Up Your Home’s Security

With the enhanced internet signal, you’ve just bolstered through our helpful tips above, it’s time to strengthen your home’s safety and security.

One of the less savory aspects of the holiday season is the increased number of packages delivered and left on the doorstep—which draws porch pirates to steal the gifts you’ve carefully researched and purchased.

Smart cameras and doorbells can deter porch pirates and help catch them. And you can connect a smart camera to your smartphone, allowing you to see everyone that comes to your door at any time of the day or night.

You can also set up notifications to alert you when the guests you’ve invited arrive in the driveway before they even ring the bell, giving you those precious extra seconds to make your house perfect for their welcome!

Tip 5: Make Efficient—and Festive—Use of Smart Plugs and Smart Lighting

Finally, to save energy (and money) and improve the holiday cheer around your home, strategically place some smart plugs around the house to control your holiday lighting—and even your Christmas tree!

Smart plugs let you set up timers for your Christmas lights on your smartphone (instead of those clunky plastic timers you have to set manually). They can also aesthetically dim your lights throughout the evening, helping create the perfect Yuletide ambiance.

Many smart plugs and lighting devices can be controlled through Alexa or other smart home devices. It all adds up to a better managed, more efficient, and simply cozier holiday home—and you might just impress your guests with your “magical” smart plug and smart lighting setup!

From better Wi-Fi signal to a safer front porch to more convenient and pleasing decorations, we hope our tips will help you get the most out of your fiber internet and smart home this holiday season—and lower the stress just a tad, too.