Wifi Porter and SMS Power Switch
Two products to review today and both related to networking. Hopefully by now you have Eero routers (they are the best) but two additional and useful products are the Wifi Porter and the SMS Power Switch.
Wifi Porter
So you have a guest network, people come over to visit your house and ask to use the wifi? Maybe friends of your kids. Do you give them a piece of paper to write down a longish password?
The Wifi Porter is a neat device that you program with your guest wifi and password. Then when people come over they can just tap their phone on the nice wood wifi symbol (NFC is supported on the latest iPhones and most Android devices) or you can point your camera at the QR code. Both work and you have a zero config wifi setup. No exchanging passwords or asking “what’s the wifi”?
The Wifi Porter is a really clever product and worthy of having in your home. If you have a second home and rent it out - this is a must.
SMS Power Switch
Something that happens to me often is that I’ll be away from home and my Comcast Cable modem will stop working. Now that so much of my house has home automation devices this can get challenging - especially my cameras and HVAC system that I want to control when traveling.
A few weeks ago I found a great solution - the SMS power switch. This awesome device has a SIM card (t-mobile) and allows you to send commands to it like rebooting the router.
I even made an Apple Shortcut so that I can send commands via SMS to my power switch.
