The Hidden Data Usage of Smart Home Devices

What Is Bandwidth?

To understand how smart home devices affect your home internet, you need to understand bandwidth.

Bandwidth is how much data your internet service can deliver to your devices at one time. You can think of your bandwidth as lanes on a highway. A highway with more lanes can accommodate more vehicles, just like an internet service with higher bandwidth can accommodate more devices. Add too many devices, though, and you may experience congestion. This congestion can lead to slower download and upload speeds.

Bandwidth differs from upload and download speeds, although all are measured in Mbps. To return to the highway analogy, speed may help keep traffic moving, but it won't make the highway wider.

What Affects Bandwidth?

The number of devices that are connected to your internet service and either sending or receiving data is what mainly affects your bandwidth. The amount of data each device requires will affect bandwidth, too. This means there's no hard limit on how many devices your internet service can handle.

The activity that a device is carrying out will also affect how much bandwidth it needs at that moment. For example, a smart TV may only need 1 Mbps when it's not in use, but may need 25 Mbps when you're streaming videos on it.

Why Do Idle Devices Affect Bandwidth?

Even when you're not using them, your smart devices can still take up bandwidth. This is because your devices need to stay connected to the internet so they can carry out some key background tasks and provide essential features, such as:

Cloud Syncing

Cloud syncing allows your devices to communicate with each other. Changes you make to one device, such as adding new photos to your library, will automatically be applied to other devices. This makes it easy to manage multiple devices and secure your data, even if one of your devices is lost or damaged.

For your devices to use cloud syncing, they need to be connected to the internet. If cloud syncing is automated, your connected devices will automatically sync when you make data changes to any connected device.

Software and Firmware Updates

From data security to optimal performance, it's important that your smart devices are kept up to date. To avoid the burden of frequent manual updates, most smart devices will have automatic update features. This lets your device download and install any new updates without prompting, provided it's connected to the internet.

For your device to automatically find and install new updates, it needs to regularly check online for those updates. This means your device will be using small amounts of bandwidth to do these checks. When your device is downloading an update, it will require even more bandwidth.

Health and Status Monitoring

To ensure your smart devices are working as they should, many will automatically send diagnostic information to the manufacturer. This allows the manufacturers to identify potential problems with the device that need to be fixed in the next update. It also helps your device recover from any current issues.

Always-On Features

For some devices to work, they need features that never turn off. For example, a video doorbell needs to constantly take footage, even if it only saves that footage when an event occurs. Smart speakers are constantly listening for their wake phrase, which requires a small amount of data.

Other devices have secondary features that must always be on and connected to the internet to work. These can include weather apps, order updates, and ambient photo displays that use photos from your cloud library.

Which Smart Home Devices Affect Bandwidth When You're Not Using Them?

Any device that is connected to your internet service and is either sending or receiving data will affect your bandwidth. However, some common smart home devices that take up bandwidth even when you aren't actively using them include:

Smart Speakers

Smart speakers, such as Amazon Echo, Google Nest, and Apple HomePod, will all take up bandwidth as long as they're connected to your internet. They have many always-on features, with phrase detection being the key one. Tasks such as streaming music or searching for information online will require additional data.

Video Doorbells and Security Cameras

Video doorbells and security cameras require a reliable internet connection so they can store any footage on the cloud or stream it to your mobile device for real-time viewing. Security cameras will store all footage they take. Video doorbells may do this, too, or they may only store event footage to reduce the amount of storage required. In both cases, the video doorbell will need to be connected to the internet.

Smart TVs and Streaming Devices

Streaming videos is one of the most data-heavy functions that your smart devices can carry out. This large data burden means that streaming video on even one device could cause data congestion.

Luckily, this only happens when the device is actively streaming videos. When it's not in use, your smart TV will only require small amounts of bandwidth for background functions, such as updates and diagnostic feedback.

Smart Thermostats and Lighting Systems

Smart thermostats and lighting systems can be operated remotely, often through a phone app. Some systems can be voice-controlled, too. In both cases, an internet connection is required for your thermostat or lighting system to receive the commands you send it.

Smart thermostats can also analyze your use to adjust performance at times when you typically don't use the heating, such as when you're at work. While these features can reduce your energy usage, they do require additional bandwidth, as the analysis and adjustments require an internet connection.

Connected Appliances

Smart appliances can be operated and monitored remotely, which requires an internet connection. Common smart appliances found in households include:

• Smart refrigerators let you adjust their temperature remotely and even check what food items you have in stock.
• Smart washers let you check how long until your wash is done, or they can send you a notification once the wash is complete. They can often adjust their settings based on the load size, too.
• Smart ovens let you safely preheat your oven remotely, and can send you notifications when your food is ready. 
• Smart dishwashers let you operate them remotely and receive notifications when the wash is complete.

All of these smart devices require an internet connection, even when you aren't using them.

How to Reduce Data Usage on Smart Home Devices

There are several ways to reduce your smart devices' data usage, which in turn frees up bandwidth for your other devices.

1. Deactivate Unnecessary Always-On Features

Some always-on features are vital for your smart device to function properly, but some are there to provide fast and automatic background functions. Many of these functions can be deactivated, especially if you don't use them. For example, always-on features that you could disable on a smart speaker include:

• Continued conversation capabilities, which means you'll have to use the wake phrase for every single command. 
• Proactive suggestions, such as a reminder to order items you buy routinely.
• Notifications, such as when your order is arriving.

All of these functions require additional bandwidth. Disabling them may mean you can't enjoy the full spectrum of smart speaker benefits, but they can free up bandwidth if you don't want or need them.

2. Adjust Quality Settings

In some cases, you can reduce the quality of a feature rather than disable it altogether. This most often applies to devices with video features. By lowering the video quality, such as the frame rate or resolution, you can reduce the file size of your video footage. As a result, less bandwidth is needed to send the footage into storage or stream it to a mobile device.

3. Schedule Updates

Rather than automatic updates, schedule updates for low-usage times, like overnight. While this doesn't affect how much data your device will use on the update, it does reduce congestion by only allowing updates when other devices are unlikely to need large amounts of bandwidth. It also stops your device from searching for updates at other times, which can free up small amounts of bandwidth.

4. Disable Automatic Cloud Syncing

To reduce the amount of bandwidth your devices need for cloud syncing, you can stop many devices from syncing automatically. While this frees up bandwidth, it can be inconvenient. If you want to back up your data on the cloud, you'll have to manually sync with other devices. This is usually a simple task, but you must remember to do it regularly to avoid losing large amounts of data.

5. Disconnect Unused Smart Home Devices

If your internet is still struggling to accommodate all of your devices, you may need to disconnect some smart home devices from your internet service. Some devices and applications, such as ovens and refrigerators, will still be able to provide their core functions, so these are good devices to remove first.

Others, such as your smart speakers, will lose most, if not all, of their functionality without an internet connection. You should only disconnect these devices if you decide you don't need to use them.

How to Know if You Need an Improved Internet Service

If you've taken all possible steps to reduce your smart home devices' bandwidth usage, but you're still experiencing slow internet, you may need to take additional steps. These can include:

• Disconnecting other devices that take up bandwidth when they're not in use.
• Rebooting or relocating your router.
• Ensuring your router has the latest software installed.

If these steps fail to resolve the problem, you may need to upgrade to a high-speed internet service.

Frequently Asked Questions About Smart Home Device Data Usage

People often have many questions on how smart home devices affect their home internet and what they can do about it — these are some of the most common questions.

How Much Bandwidth Does My House Need?

The amount of bandwidth your household needs will depend on:

• The number of devices connected to your internet.
• The types of devices connected to your internet.
• The activities you use those devices for.
• The number of activities and devices that will require bandwidth simultaneously.

Most people will find that an internet service that delivers a download speed of 100 Mbps and an upload speed of 10 Mbps is sufficient. However, to ensure that you don't experience any congestion during peak times or when you have additional devices connected, you may want much higher speeds. Households that regularly have data-heavy activities occurring at the same time may want download speeds of 500-1,000 Mbps, and upload speeds of 50-100 Mbps.

How Much Bandwidth Do Smart Home Devices Consume?

The amount of bandwidth a smart home device requires will depend on the activity it's performing. Activities such as receiving simple commands require minimal bandwidth, while data-heavy activities such as video streaming require large amounts of bandwidth. Some common smart device activities and their bandwidth requirements are:

• Smart plugs require less than 2 Mbps to turn on and off.
• Smart thermostats require less than 2 Mbps to adjust temperature.
• Smart speakers require 2-5 Mbps to stream music.
• Video doorbells require 2-5 Mbps to stream standard definition video.
• Security cameras and video cameras require at least 5 Mbps to record and store HD or 4K footage.
• Smart TVs and streaming devices require at least 20 Mbps for reliable and uninterrupted HD or 4K video streaming.

Can I Use a Security Camera Without Internet Data?

If you want a security camera that doesn't take up any bandwidth, you'll need one that can store data locally. This means the camera uses a wired connection to transfer any footage it takes to a physical hard drive. While this will free up bandwidth for your other devices, you won't be able to remotely view your camera's live or recorded footage.

Are Smart Home Devices Slowing Down My Internet?

It's possible that your smart home devices are taking up bandwidth and causing congestion, which can lead to some devices not receiving data at a sufficient speed. However, there are many other possible causes for your slow internet speeds. Activities on other devices, such as online gaming on a console or video streaming on a mobile device, can take up large amounts of bandwidth, too.

Other factors, such as your router's location and interference with your neighbors' Wi-Fi signals, could also cause problems. To determine if your smart home devices are impacting your speeds, perform a speed test on a device that has a wired connection to your router. Next, deactivate or disconnect all of your smart home devices, and then repeat the test. The difference between the two tests will give you a good idea of how much bandwidth your smart home devices are taking up.

The Effect of Smart Home Devices on Your Internet

Smart home devices can take up your bandwidth even when you're not actively using them. Sometimes, it's so your devices can carry out tasks that are vital to their functionality, but other times, it's simply to provide the best possible user experience.

Luckily, there are several steps you can take to reduce the amount of bandwidth they require. If this fails, an improved internet service should resolve any problems you have with data congestion.