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In 2023, the average U.S. home had 17 devices connected to its internet service, three of which were smart home devices. With so many connected devices that require reliable internet speeds, households now expect more from their internet service.

To ensure these rising demands and expectations are more readily met, the Federal Communications Commission changed the definition of broadband to be a minimum download speed of 100 megabits per second (Mbps), up from 25 Mbps in 2015.

However, many people don’t realize that their devices might use data even when they’re not being used. Smart home devices are one of the most common types that constantly use data and take up bandwidth.

This guide from Highline explores how smart home devices affect bandwidth in your home.

What Is Bandwidth?

To understand how smart home devices affect your home internet, you need to understand bandwidth.

Bandwidth is how much data your internet service can deliver to your devices at one time. You can think of your bandwidth as lanes on a highway. A highway with more lanes can accommodate more vehicles, just like an internet service with higher bandwidth can accommodate more devices. Add too many devices, though, and you may experience congestion. This congestion can lead to slower download and upload speeds.

Bandwidth differs from upload and download speeds, although all are measured in Mbps. To return to the highway analogy, speed may help keep traffic moving, but it won’t make the highway wider.

What Affects Bandwidth?

The number of devices that are connected to your internet service and either sending or receiving data is what mainly affects your bandwidth. The amount of data each device requires will affect bandwidth, too. This means there’s no hard limit on how many devices your internet service can handle.

The activity that a device is carrying out will also affect how much bandwidth it needs at that moment. For example, a smart TV may only need 1 Mbps when it’s not in use, but may need 25 Mbps when you’re streaming videos on it.

Why Do Idle Devices Affect Bandwidth?

Even when you’re not using them, your smart devices can still take up bandwidth. This is because your devices need to stay connected to the internet so they can carry out some key background tasks and provide essential features, such as:

Cloud Syncing

Cloud syncing allows your devices to communicate with each other. Changes you make to one device, such as adding new photos to your library, will automatically be applied to other devices. This makes it easy to manage multiple devices and secure your data, even if one of your devices is lost or damaged.

For your de

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Finding the right women’s health physician is both crucial and complex. In 2026, women can seek care from practitioners who leave behind a “one-size-fits-all” medical approach in favor of a personalized, collaborative perspective on care.

Women deserve to feel empowered to seek the medical partnership they need and deserve, one that recognizes the unique, dynamic nature of each patient’s health journey. From the reproductive years through midlife transitions, women need providers who understand that every stage of life brings different physiological, emotional, and medical considerations. To accomplish that, it helps to reconsider the “ideal” OBGYN as more than a medical expert—they are a medical partner who can help navigate the increasingly sophisticated world of personalized healthcare, technological advances, and holistic wellness.

Here, Northwell Health shares five indicators you’ve found a healthcare professional who will champion your wellbeing and empower you to understand and take control of your health through informed, joint decision-making.

Patient-Centered Approach

The right doctor recognizes that women’s healthcare isn’t the same for all patients. A woman’s health physician should be adaptable, meeting you where you are in your life cycle. Whether you’re navigating contraceptive needs, managing fertility concerns, or addressing midlife health transitions from perimenopause to menopause, your doctor listens first and, second, creates a personalized plan with you.

Comprehensive and Proactive Screening

A forward-thinking physician goes beyond routine, annual check-ups. They’ll discuss age-specific screenings tailored to patients’ needs and detailed health history, from cervical cancer screenings to bone density tests. For women 40 and older, this means a holistic approach that addresses every system of the body. The right physician will take a comprehensive view and help you prioritize preventative care.

Technology and Information Savvy

Forward-thinking doctors in 2026 embrace technological advances while maintaining an authentic human touch. They’re comfortable using AI tools to enhance and supplement patient care, such as helping generate targeted health questions or utilizing predictive health models. They can help navigate medical information you may encounter on social media, answering questions about health trends and helping separate myths from medical facts.

Open Communication

Today’s physicians create a true partnership. They’re willing to have transparent conversations about sensitive topics like hormonal changes, sexual health, and reproductive transitions. Whether discussing menopause, hormone replacement therapy, or emerging medical research, they explain complex information in accessible language and encourage your active participation. They hear your concerns without dismissing them.

Holistic Health Perspective

The right doctor sees beyond immediate symptoms. They understand that women’s health is complex and interconnected, recognizing how hormonal changes can affect sleep, m

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The cost of living has risen sharply in recent years, and so have financial stress levels. Recent data shows that three of four Americans today are anxious about their financial situations, and among those concerned, debt is a big factor.

• 68% worry they won’t have enough money to retire
• 58% feel their finances control their lives
• 56% say they can’t keep up with the cost of living
• 45% struggle to manage debt on a weekly basis

With this data in hand, financial experts at Beyond Finance — who regularly speak with consumers in debt — unpack eight common signs that debt has become a problem.

Insights on when debt becomes a problem

Debt becomes unmanageable for the people they help when:

• They’re only making minimum payments because they can’t afford more
• Credit is being used to cover everyday necessities
• New debt is taken on to deal with existing balances
• Debt stress is so high, they ignore or avoid the problem
• Debt begins affecting mental health or everyday needs

These observations often signal that debt is no longer manageable without support and it may be time to take action and explore options.

The 8 Signs You May Have a Debt Problem

If you have debt and relate to three or more of the following, you might have a problem.

1. Overdrafting feels normal

When checking accounts regularly dip below zero before payday, it’s a sign expenses are exceeding income. That’s a moment to look closer at how much of your cash flow is being taken up by debt—and whether overdrafts are forcing you to rely on new credit to cover the gap.

2. You’re only making minimum payments

Minimum payments keep accounts current, but they reduce debt very slowly. Because most of the payment goes toward interest, balances often barely move — and when that’s all you can afford, it’s a common sign there’s little room in your budget to make real progress.

3. You borrow from family or friends

Turning to friends or family for financial help (especially more than once) is a sign that debt has eliminated your financial breathing room. When existing debt leaves you without other options, relying on loved ones can strain relationships and add emotional stress to an already difficult situation.

4. You avoid looking at your finances

Avoidance is rarely neutral. If you know your finances are in bad shape but avoid looking at how bad, it’s often a sign that debt has become emotionally overwhelming — not just financially stressful.

5. You don’t have a clear plan

Paying attention to debt isn’t the same as having a plan. Without a clear repayment strategy and timeline, debt can feel endless—and progress can be just as limited as if you weren’t looking at it at all.

6. Spending is impulsive or emotional

Emotiona

Barbara Barrett // Stateline

As many people struggle to afford housing and tenant populations grow in some regions, more cities are turning to official registries to answer questions about their rental housing market, Stateline reports.

Who owns this rental property? Are they up to date on code requirements, such as having working fire alarms? Are they keeping their building heated and habitable during the cold winter months?

Registries such as those in Denver, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Oakland, California, aim to gather as much data as they can on rentals within their city limits. The way cities use that data differs, and the teeth of their policies vary. The data can help them understand rent conditions, track corporate ownership and manage assistance programs. And the cities said they are better for having a registry.

As more people are becoming renters — outnumbering homeowners in some areas — many cities lack registries to keep track of the number of rental properties and who owns them. There is also no centralized database tracking which cities or states have rental registries, and federal efforts to study or create a national registry have not advanced beyond proposals.

Rental registries are created locally, vary widely in design and purpose, and must be identified through city-by-city research, according to Reina Chano Murray, associate director at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s Center for Geospatial Solutions. Some registries might focus on short-term rentals, others on long-term housing, inspections or affordability. And they differ in how data is collected, verified and shared.

“That variability makes it challenging to aggregate or standardize registries at a national level, but it’s also what makes them most useful locally. The strongest rental registries are built to solve a clear problem,” said Chano Murray.

Issues might include identifying absentee or corporate landlords, supporting rental assistance programs, understanding local rent conditions, or improving enforcement of rental housing conditions, she said.

The National League of Cities provides model legislation for city ordinances on rental registries. The organization, a research and advocacy resource for municipal leaders, advises them to seek, at minimum, information on property owners, including whether they live in or out of city limits, and a contact who will address tenants or deal with other emergencies and legal services.

Landlord and real estate interests often oppose rental registries, arguing that tracking properties and increasing regulation will discourage business development and increase costs for tenants.

But the registries have b

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Are you rich or broke for your age? CreditNinja dug into the data to find out what actually makes you rich or poor for your age, and chances are you’re way off about where you really stand with your financial plan.

Key Takeaways

• You are likely not “rich” or “poor” for your age unless your net worth and retirement savings are far above or below the median benchmarks for your decade.
• Median income and net worth are much lower than averages suggest, especially in your 20s and 30s, because high earners skew the data.
• Debt tends to rise through your 30s and 40s due to homes, cars, and family costs, then declines in later decades as mortgages are paid down.
• Starting to invest early and consistently, even with small amounts, has a much bigger impact on long-term wealth than trying to catch up later.

Average Wealth for Your 20s

The average annual income for a person in their 20s is about $43,500. The average net worth is $110,000. While that number is correct, the truth is the average is very, very misleading.

Averages are skewed by outliers. In this case, outliers are people in their 20s who are making much more than average. So, instead of their average income, using their median income is a more realistic representation of the population because it shows the middle point where half of the people earn more and half of the people earn less.

The median income for a person in their 20s drops to $35,300 per year. The net worth drops even further from over $110,000 to just $7,500.

CreditNinja

Net worth isn’t just income. It includes things like your home and retirement accounts, which you’re more likely to have by your late 20s. So hopefully you’re starting to feel better about yourself if you’re in this age group or if you’re thinking about where you were in your 20s.

But what about debt statistics? Debt.org calculates the average nonmortgage debt of an 18- to 29-year-old at $12,871. This includes things like student loans and car payments. As discussed, the average probably can’t be fully trusted, since it could be skewed by people who are paying more than what they can afford for their car.

But even if the median is a lot lower, what makes up this age bracket’s debt? As you can imagine, a lot of it is student loans. The median amount of debt is around $15,000 of student loan debt for those under 25. Credit card debt is also pretty common. It hovers a