My name is Dave Severn, and I have been working with networks since 2004. Started with Cisco routers at a small MSP in Baltimore, worked my way up to senior network engineer at a mid-size financial firm, and spent the better part of two decades making sure other people’s networks stayed up.

In 2019, I hit burnout. The 3 AM pages, the endless firmware updates, the politics – I was done. My wife and I moved to a quieter town in Maryland, and I started consulting part-time instead.

That first year at home, I discovered smart home tech. Not the flashy voice-assistant stuff you see in commercials, but the real infrastructure underneath: mesh networks, IoT protocols, local automation servers, network segmentation for dozens of connected devices.

I realized something: most smart home advice online comes from people who have never touched a managed switch. They will tell you to buy a $300 mesh system without mentioning that your 47 IoT devices are all fighting for airtime on the same channel. They review hubs without talking about latency, reliability, or what happens when your cloud provider has an outage.

What I Write About

I write about smart home connectivity from a network engineering perspective:

  • Home networking – WiFi 6/6E, mesh systems, VLANs for IoT, proper network design for 50+ devices
  • Smart home protocols – Zigbee, Z-Wave, Matter, Thread. What works, what does not, and what is actually worth buying into
  • Automation – Home Assistant, Node-RED, practical automations that solve real problems
  • Reliability – local vs cloud, backup power, failover strategies, keeping your home running when the internet goes down

My Setup

I run a UniFi network with 3 access points, a Home Assistant server on a mini PC, about 60 Zigbee devices through a Sonoff coordinator, a handful of Z-Wave locks and sensors, and roughly 20 WiFi devices segregated on their own VLAN. Everything important runs locally – if my ISP goes down, my lights, locks, and thermostat still work.

I am not sponsored by any company. I buy everything I review with my own money. When something breaks (and it does), I write about that too.

Got a question? Hit the contact page and I will try to help.