Getting Your Smart Home Ready for Florida Hurricane Season

Every Central Florida homeowner knows the routine when a storm is on the way: water, batteries, gas, and a plan. If your home has smart lighting, cameras, motorized shades or a whole-home network, it deserves a plan too. Power outages, surges and long stretches without internet are exactly the conditions that expose weak spots in a smart home.

Before the season: build in resilience

• Protect your equipment from surges. Whole-home surge protection at the electrical panel, plus quality surge protection at your network rack and entertainment system, guards the gear that is most expensive to replace.

• Put your network on battery backup. A UPS (uninterruptible power supply) on your modem, router and switches keeps your system running through short outages and lets equipment shut down cleanly during long ones.

• Keep your control system on backup power. Your automation controller, hubs and touch panels are the brains of the house. If they reboot every time the power flickers, everything else follows.

• Plan for cameras and doorbells. Cameras that record locally keep working when the internet goes down, as long as they and the recorder have power.

• Add water leak and temperature sensors. Sensors near water heaters, AC air handlers and under sinks can alert your phone the moment something goes wrong, even when you have evacuated.

When a storm is coming

• Check that your app works away from home, and that the right family members have access.

• Lower motorized shades on the storm side of the house to cut glare and heat, and set a scene that turns off non-essential circuits.

• If you have a generator, confirm which circuits it powers so your network, fridge and security system are on it.

• Take photos of your equipment and serial numbers for insurance.

After the storm

When power comes back, it often flickers several times. Give your system a few minutes to settle before rebooting anything. If devices go offline, start with the modem, then the router, then the control system. Check your surge protectors, since many need replacing after absorbing a large surge.

Let us check your system before the season

Central Florida Home Automation can review your surge protection, battery backup, network and remote access so your home stays connected when the weather turns. Call 407-885-8555 or use the contact form to schedule a visit.