A smart home gateway earns its place for three reasons, and none of them is range

Gateways are usually sold as coverage devices. The box promises to extend reach, blanket the property, and remove dead zones, which is a compelling pitch and mostly irrelevant to why the device is useful. A gateway is not a range extender, and treating it as one leads to buying it at the wrong moment and expecting the wrong result. What it actually does is quieter and more structural: it decides…