When the power goes out, most smart homes turn into chaos—lights blasting on at 3 AM, locks freezing up, and sensors taking forever to reconnect. This episode walks you through building an invisible backup system that keeps your automation running smoothly during blackouts. You'll learn how to size UPS batteries correctly, understand why some protocols recover faster than others, and figure out which devices actually need backup power versus which ones handle outages on their own. If you've ever woken up to a smart home that forgot how to be smart, this checklist is for you.

• Your router and hub need their own backup battery with at least two hours of power. Think of your router like the brain's communication center—without it, none of your smart devices can talk to each other or the internet, so it needs to stay on longer than anyth ...