Smart home appliances were invented to make your life easier. Pressing a button to switch on/off your light becomes unnecessary, as you can simply ask Google Assistant to do it for you.
Worry about forgetting to lock your door before sleeping? You can easily set up a timer for the smart door to automatically lock itself.
While smart home devices offer plenty of benefits, they’re still far from being perfect. If you change your Wi-Fi password or replace your old router with a new one, your smart devices will lose internet connectivity.
That means you need to fill in your new network details on each smart device to reconnect them. That sounds easy to do on two or three devices. But, doing it to tons of them can be quite exhausting.
Don’t lose all hope just yet, however, as there are things you can do to change Wi-Fi networks on all your smart devices at once.
How to Change Wi-Fi Networks on All Your Smart Devices at Once
While the absolute answer to the problem doesn’t exist just yet, there are some solutions worth trying, such as:
Change your old router details to the new one
For some reason, there are times when changing a router is inevitable. Either your router brokes, or you want to change to a new ISP (internet service provider).
Getting a new router means getting a new SSID name and password. For those of you unfamiliar with it, SSID (which stands for Service Set IDentifier) is your network’s name. You’ll see a bunch of this when going to a public place and searching for Wi-Fi to connect.
The problem with this, your smart devices don’t know the name of your new SSID and password. Therefore, they can’t connect with it. The usual solution to this would be to manually connect your device to the router by entering the new SSID and password.
However, if you change your new router’s SSID and password exactly the same as your old one, your smart devices will then recognize it and reconnect automatically.
The only setback of this solution is that some of the newest routers have upgraded their security and don’t support connections with older routers.
Apply Wi-Fi mesh system instead of using a router
The second solution you can try is to use a whole-home Wi-Fi mesh system rather than the traditional router.
A Wi-Fi mesh is a system where multiple routers are placed on different parts of your home, and those routers are connected to one base router. So, instead of getting only one source of network, you’ll get multiple sources that cover your whole house, hence the name.
While you need to set up all of your smart devices first to the Wi-Fi mesh, it might be the only time you do that for years to come. The reason? Because the Wi-Fi mesh system usually lasts a lot longer than your usual ISP’s router.
Indeed, this solution doesn’t solve the main problem of how to change your Wi-Fi networks on all your smart devices at once. But applying this will allow you to be less dependent on routers, which tend to be changed every year or two.
Use Ethernet cables
One advantage of using Ethernet cables is that it doesn’t require you to fill in the password every time you connect your smart home appliances to the network.
The main issue of this solution is the fact that not all smart devices support Ethernet cables.
But, let’s say you have six smart devices at home. If four of them come with Ethernet support, that means you only have to manually reconnect two devices instead of six each time you change a router.
While this doesn’t completely solve your problem, it will at least make your work a bit easier.
Conclusion
Currently, the perfect solution that answers how to change Wi-Fi networks on all your smart devices at once simply doesn’t exist.
While you can transfer the details of your old router to the new one, use Ethernet-enabled devices, or apply a whole-home Wi-Fi mesh system, these solutions don’t always work.
It’s up to the smart home appliance makers to create a centralized hub that controls Wi-Fi settings across different smart devices, regardless of brand.
After all, technology is meant to be continuously upgraded, and tech companies have to start thinking about the ideal solutions to this small-yet-crucial issue.
Do you have any other ideas to simultaneously change Wi-Fi settings across all devices? If so, give us your thoughts in the comment below.
