A Belgian Homeowner Uses Over 400 Smart Home Devices At The Same Time - Here's How

In 2026, more than 82% of households around the globe are smart homes in some capacity. But who actually has the smartest home? It might be Reddit user DonDrapeur, whose house in Belgium uses 420 smart home devices and counting. By comparison, SQ Magazine estimates that the average U.S. smart home contains just six IoT-connected devices.

DonDrapeur explains in their Reddit post that a Loxone Miniserver running Home Assistant OS is the backbone of the IoT array. It manages more than 3,200 data point entities, and the server running it all operates on a PC containing an AMD Ryzen 5300U processor, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB NVMe solid-state drive, and a 2.5 GbE Ethernet switch. To top it all off, nearly every smart device is power-metered via Zigbee plugs to track and manage energy consumption on a granular level.

In many cases, smart homes are limited by the capabilities of the router being used. This raises the question of how many devices an average home router can connect to. A Wi-Fi 7 router with the newest technology can handle up to 200 devices — and some of the best Wi-Fi 7 routers you can buy are actually capable of supporting even more devices than that. Things get exponentially more complicated as you add more devices, but as long as you follow the essential smart home gadget rules at every step, you could theoretically achieve your own 400-device IoT network.

The aforementioned Reddit user is very proud of their excessively smart home. Every aspect of home management, entertainment, and energy consumption can be controlled and automated when you have more than 400 smart home devices running the show. But there are two key downsides to this kind of deployment: upkeep and security.

Maintaining a literal fleet of IoT devices requires constant monitoring and maintenance. Each device has its own life expectancy and manufacturer update schedule. Whenever one device fails or installs a new firmware version, it can throw a wrench into the whole operation. One minor change can affect compatibility, rendering certain devices unable to cooperate with one another anymore. Additionally, having more devices means more data flowing over a larger network, which can lead to bandwidth bottlenecks that may be difficult to diagnose. Despite the appeal, it's important to know which smart devices you should think twice before buying.

And then there's the matter of security. Another statistic from SQ Magazine states that an IoT-connected household faces 29 IoT cyberattacks per day across an average 22-device surface. Taking that statistic at face value, it would mean that the 420-device household in Belgium may face as many as 550 cyberattacks every day. Cyber criminals are constantly hunting for vulnerabilities, launching well over 100 million home IoT-targeted attacks per year in an attempt to take advantage of any weakness. Even if you only own a handful of IoT devices, you need to know how to protect your smart home from hackers.