By Dan Cash Briant Broadband • Broadband • General Information • WiFi • 0 Comments

How About A Cyber Spring Clean To Make Room For New Tech?

router, cyber spring clean, wireless, digital, broadband, internet,With Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas all starting to appear on the horizon it’s time to take care of a belated ‘Cyber Spring Clean’ to ensure that your digital network is spruced up, cleared out and ready for any new devices and apps which you’ll need as we head out of 2022.

If you’re anything like me you’ll have apps and interfaces for services and devices you barely use any more. Either you’ve stopped using them, you only use them rarely, or you don’t bother with the app because you’ve ended up using another method to make the thing work for you.

While apps which aren’t running won’t slow your phone or laptop down, they do take up space, meaning clutter and confusion. And if you’re paying a subscription for additional services and you’re not using the app or device any longer then that’s pure waste.

So how do you go about taking care of a Cyber Spring Clean?

Start From The Top

Cleaning out your Wi-Fi network is a good place to start. Go into your router settings and you can see all the connected devices. If there are any you don’t recognise you can kick them off, and if something you rely on suddenly stops working you can just reconnect it. On the other hand you might have just kicked off a neighbour who was piggybacking off your data. Not really a big deal in these days of unlimited data and ultrafast connections, but a user you don’t know about is going to eat up your bandwidth, meaning slower overall speeds, particularly if you use a slower broadband package. And they’re a security threat too, as being on your network means they could conceivably get access to Smart devices such as cameras, devices with microphones, and access controls. Read more

By Dan Cash CCTV • Do It Yourself • Energy Saving • Home Security • • 0 Comments

Your Smart Lights Can Do More Around The Home Than You Know

3 Ornamental lights in a row hanging from a light coloured ceilingAttaching smart lights to your home network is a quick and convenient way to get energy efficient lights which adapt to your needs into your home. They’re great for enhancing a mood, easily dimmable and can be used in conjunction with your home security to come on at times which make it look as if someone’s home even when you’re out. But being Smart, they must be able to do more than that, right?

Right!

If you’re syncing your lighting to your home security it makes sense to add a motion sensor to your lights too. Inside or outside, the motion detector will turn the lights on wherever you want, so if you’re coming home on a wet & drear night you can have the porch light turned on to save fumbling, or sensors which turn on CCTV cameras can turn on bedroom lights, alerting you to potential intruders and sending the message to those lurking on your property that you’re aware they’re there. These little touches make it look like you’re home and awake even when the property is unoccupied. Read more