What does Lennar’s new Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ Home Design mean for the future of wireless? In a recent CEPro article by Julie Jacobson, learn why tech and smart home experts support Lennar’s new and innovative approach to smart home building.
Talk to anyone who specializes in home-automation and other low-voltage technologies, and they will applaud Lennar for adopting “Wi-Fi Certified Home Design,” a smart-home wiring protocol developed with the Wi-Fi Alliance.
On the other hand, explain how Lennar is eliminating almost all other low-voltage wires in new homes, and their enthusiasm fades (note that Lennar’s plans are still fluid).
Still, there are a few home-technology veterans who defend Lennar’s faith in a wireless future. We share their views here.
Wi-Fi Certified: Good
First, the good news for Lennar, home buyers and the tech community: The Wi-Fi Certified seal of approval requires homes to be prewired for wireless access points (WAPs or APs), ensuring whole-house, continuous Wi-Fi coverage with no dead spots. Lennar, the #2 homebuilder in the U.S., is the first to adopt the protocol as a standard for all of its new homes – more than 25,000 per year.
“Good for them for being progressive thinkers,” says William Zidek of Chicago-based Tandem Marketing, a leading manufacturers’ representative for the home-technology industry. “I hope it motivates luxury-oriented builders to offer better infrastructure as a standard.”
Zidek’s sentiment is pretty universal among the home-technology trade. When consumers have trouble with any connected device in the home, chances are it has something to do with the wireless network. The Wi-Fi router is usually located at the edge of the home, leaving much of the property with spotty coverage.
New home buyers expect Wi-Fi to “just work,” says David Kaiserman, president of Lennar Ventures.
For that to happen, he says, you need to “engineer for wireless from the get-go.”
So far, everyone’s pretty much in agreement on that.
Source: In Defense of Lennar’s Wi-Fi Smart Home Strategy: ‘Wireless is the Future’ – CE Pro
