Hello,
If you haven’t already seen their article discussing different radio technologies, it’s worth taking the time to read.
That being said there are a few more cons worth discussing with WiFi.
Channels
There are two main frequencies used for wireless networks 2.4GHz (2G) and 5GHZ (5G). Powerful devices such as computers and tablets tend to prefer 5G networks, as they offer greater bandwidth and typically have less interference.
Smart Home devices on the other hand tend to prefer 2G networks, as they offer greater range and consume less power than 5G radios. Typically, a 2G network will extend well beyond your house (depending on the size), or you will have multiple access points to ensure full coverage.
This presents a problem if you don’t have much space between your neighbors, as your networks will cause interference. The solution is typically to change the channel, after all you have 11 (US) to chose from right?
Wrong - There are only three non-overlapping channels (1, 6, and 11). This means your neighbor would need to use say channel 1 and you use channel 6 to avoid interference. Oh, and if you have multiple access points - those should also be on their own channels as well.
In most cases three channels aren’t enough to avoid interference as you might have guessed. The more interference you have the worse your network will perform, with symptoms being slower speeds and frequent disconnects.
There are more non-overlapping channels for 5G networks, granted those can run out quickly as well.
Clients
There is a limit to how many devices most networks can support. The limit will vary depending on your equipment, and the devices connecting to the network. Think of your wireless router/access point as one person talking, and one device as another person. In order to function both people must talk with each other at all time. Now change the volume based on the amount of data used - a TV streaming video requires a lot of data so they would be yelling. A light switch isn’t using much so it’s whispering. At a certain point your router isn’t going to be able to process everyone talking at once, and so your wifi performance will suffer.
You can do some fancy networking magic (think enterprise equipment) to get away with higher device counts, but that gets expensive quickly. Not to mention complicated to setup and manage.
My recommendation is using zwave switches/outlets to automate things. In addition to building a strong mesh, things should just work as it’s all compatible. Oh, and they aren’t proprietary or reliant on a cloud service - so you can replace the hub if you need something different or Inovelli was to vanish.
Hope that helps 