Why not Wi‑Fi? It’s the question every smart home person asks eventually—because Wi‑Fi devices are easy: plug-and-play for us, cheaper and cleaner for manufacturers to sell. In this video I’m not trying to “ban” Wi‑Fi, but I am trying to frame it as a discussion and a strategy. In an ideal world, I want a hard line between my smart home devices and everything else that walks through my front door, and that starts with infrastructure. The biggest Wi‑Fi culprit is lighting—especially fixtures and bulbs—because the device count explodes fast. I walk through a real example in my own place: just the basement, kitchen, dining room, bathroom, and bedroom gets me to around 30 devices before I’ve even counted half the lights. If you’ve invested in a strong network and know how to optimize for 100+ devices, you might be fine. But most houses are running the ISP router, and in that world, too many Wi‑Fi bulbs can create those annoying, hard-to-pinpoint issues—little connectivity anomalies and slowdowns that feel like stubbing your toe, not a total outage. My takeaway: be strategic. Use Thread and Zigbee where you can (especially for standard bulbs), and fill the gaps with Wi‑Fi when there’s no alternative. Wi‑Fi should be the exception, not the rule—and lighting is the easiest place to control your Wi‑Fi device count for long-term stability.