How Wi-Fi Is Transforming Smart Home Connectivity in India

In an exclusive interaction with Adlin Pertishya Jebaraj, Correspondent of Homes India Magazine, Bijoy Alaylo, COO & Director of TP-Link India, shares perspectives on the rapid growth of India's smart home ecosystem driven by value-focused devices, faster broadband, and regional proliferation. Alaylo goes on to convey how Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 are transforming connectivity with faster speeds, lower latency, and increased energy efficiency. 

Bijoy Alaylo has 15 years of experience in the networking and connectivity industry and has been instrumental in TP-Link’s growth and brand leadership across India. He is also passionate about creative collaboration and believes in radically connecting, be it through technology or life. 

How do you see the current state of India’s smart home market and what are the driving adoption trends of Wi-Fi-enabled devices across urban and semi-urban households? 

The market of smart homes is at its inflection point in India, the adoption is growing rapidly in urban centers, and it is steadily penetrating the tier-2 and bigger semi-urban towns. Remote work and streaming of entertainment and home automation convenience are pushing urban households to adopt smart devices; cheaper devices, aggressive broadband connections, and aspirational purchasing are increasing semi-urban household adoption.  

The most important drivers are the declining device prices, rising access to cheap fiber/Wi-Fi broadband, the growing presence of smartphones (as the control hub), and the provision of localized content and voice assistants in the regional languages. Security (cameras, smart locks), entertainment (smart TVs, streaming sticks), and connectivity boosters (mesh routers, range extenders) devices that address apparent; daily pain points are those devices that experience the fastest adoption. 

Describe the evolution of Wi-Fi technologies such as Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 impacting device performance, latency, and energy efficiency in smart homes? 

Bringing significant improvements in architecture Wi-Fi 6 (and more recently Wi-Fi 6E/Wi-Fi 7) is offering major improvements in OFDMA, MU-MIMO, wider channels (and 6GHz in Wi-Fi 6E), and improved scheduling to bring about higher sustained throughput, reduced latency in real-time applications (gaming, video calls) and much better multi-device behavior in dense homes.  

In the case of smart homes, it will be the assurance of simultaneous video streams across several cameras, faster voice assistant reactions, and less bumpy low-latency control of IoT sensors and automation triggers. Devices that require energy saving, such as Target Wake Time (TWT) decrease power consumption to increase battery life of sensors and cameras.  

Wi-Fi 7 2-band offers even higher throughput and reduced latency, although the practical effect will be in high-density and high-number-of-devices homes and commercial / MDU applications with many high-throughput devices operating concurrently. 

How are manufacturers addressing interoperability challenges across various smart home ecosystems and devices? 

Manufacturers are working on the issue of interoperability in multiple areas: adoption of common standards (Matter, IP-based protocols), Open API and Cloud/edge hybrid architectures, and supporting alliances that standardize device discovery and control. Practical solutions are also the bundling of compatibility libraries, companion apps, which consolidate many platforms (Alexa, Google, Apple), and provides bridges/hubs to legacy protocols (Zigbee, Z-Wave).  

A second useful technique is to concentrate on a first-time configuration, and a single-pane-of-glass management (application or web interface) that hides all protocol complexity to the end user. They are also focusing on certification and ecosystem relationships (with platform owners, chipset vendors and cloud providers) so that there is a uniform cross brand experience.

Also Read: Hospitality Trends: How Indian Hotels Are Leading the Change

What measures are being implemented to strengthen data security and privacy in connected homes? 

Security is emerging as a minimum differentiator. Such as device-level secure boot and hardware root of trust, end-to-end encryption (Utilizing superior signaling with TLS, streams with AES), routine OTA firm-pulling, role-based access and multi-factor authentication of apps, and comparable local-first features (on-processor processing, Kamprad local NAS/SD) can be used to reduce cloud exposure.  

Consumers and regulators are becoming more and more demanding in terms of privacy-by-design, data minimization, anonymization and clear consent/retention policies. Secure deployment instructions toward installers, network segmentation (separate VLAN /guest IoT Wi-Fi), and remote management protocols (TR-069, protected APIs) with constrained privilege to MSPs are also offered by vendors.  

Lastly, auditing of security, penetration test by third-party and adherence to standards (ISO, regional rules) enhances credibility. 

Also Read: Integrating Technology in Housing Infrastructure Projects

How do you see the Indian smart home market evolving over the next decade in terms of innovation, affordability, and consumer lifestyle transformation? 

In the coming years, the early adopter urban users will widen into mainstream households in semi-urban towns and smaller towns as a result of declining component prices, government and non-government investment in broadband and modular product packages.  

Innovation will no longer be limited to single device, and it will be integrated into an ecosystem (AI-controlled automation, predictive maintenance and context-sensitive experience) and closer to the edge. The price will come down in terms of scale, regional manufacturing, and customized financing/model of subscriptions (device + managed services).  

Lifestyle change will manifest as safer living conditions (bringing safer homes), energy efficiency (smart meters, HVAC control), and convenience (built in health, eldercare monitoring, home office improvements) in the eyes of the consumers. B2B2C models are expected to become more important in distribution and recurrent revenue by real-estate developers, managed service providers, and telcos.