This guide provides a step-by-step guide on how to build a home WiFi network, a typical wireless LAN (WLAN), using a simple three-step approach: identifying the best WLAN design for your situation, choosing good wireless gear, installing gear, and testing the configured WLAN. A home network diagram is a schematic drawing of a home network layout that helps plan your network and figure out the best way to get the most out of it.
To set up a home network, you should evaluate home network hardware, compare wired vs. wireless devices, connect wired client devices, and connect wireless client devices. A typical design approach is to do a 30/70 split between 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.
The heart of most wireless networks is the wireless router, which is the heart of most wireless networks. To create a seamless, unified Wi-Fi network, use a mesh system consisting of multiple router-like devices called nodes. A step-by-step guide covers buying equipment, cabling, configuring routers and switches, connecting devices, and making the right security choices.
Designing the perfect in-home wireless network can be tricky, but each floor plan is specially created to provide whole home coverage based on residence size, number of levels, neighboring networks, and wall composition. Steps include setting up the router, setting up Wi-Fi and increasing network security, connecting devices via Wi-Fi, and setting up file and printers. One of the most fundamental Wi-Fi design considerations is coverage planning, which is all about area and optimizing the distance between devices.
📹 The Angry Dad’s Guide to Awesome Home WiFi
Tired of the family complaining about sketchy wifi? Dave takes you on a tour of a large UniFi installation and reveals the secrets of …
How can I make my whole house Wi-Fi?
A WiFi range extender can enhance home WiFi coverage by connecting to an existing router and creating a separate network with its own name and security credentials. However, these extenders have complexities and limitations. Devices must constantly log into the range extender and back into the router as they roam around the home. Additionally, the range extender cannot communicate simultaneously with the router and all connected devices, reducing transmission capacity and overall WiFi performance.
Another option is to install an additional router, which requires network cabling at all access points, making initial setup and maintenance complex and expensive. However, this method does not address login disruptions or bandwidth issues mentioned in the previous method. Overall, a range extender is a more cost-effective and efficient solution for extending WiFi coverage.
Can I build a Wi-Fi?
Setting up a wireless (WiFi) network at home is a convenient, cost-effective solution that eliminates the need for connecting and disconnecting wires for computers. To create a wireless network, you need a wireless access point, a wireless router, and either wireless radio signals or Ethernet cables. The 802. 11g router is typically recommended for its speed and reliability.
Once the router is connected, it will work according to its default settings, but you can modify them by accessing a web interface. You can select the network’s name, service set identifier (SSID), and choose a channel. To protect your router’s security, set up a username and password.
To protect your network’s privacy, you can use WiFi Protected Access (WPA), a new version of the Wired Equivalency Privacy (WEP) security program, which is typically used by public hotspots. Alternatively, you can set up a Media Access Control (MAC) address-filtering program, which doesn’t rely on passwords, by setting up your router with a list of specific MAC addresses on your computers.
Are LAN and Ethernet the same?
LAN cables, also known as Ethernet cables, are essential for modern connectivity, serving as the physical infrastructure for data transmission between devices within a specific geographic area. They are used to connect different devices, such as computers and other hardware, to form a LAN. LAN cables are best used for small distances, such as a home printer connecting to a router. They enable the seamless exchange of data, resources, and information among connected devices within the network, empowering businesses, manufacturing facilities, and households to share files, access the internet, and run network-dependent applications. Essentially, LAN cables provide the connection needed to establish the LAN, enabling seamless communication and efficient data exchange among devices within the network.
Can you have 2 wifis in one house?
A second internet line at home can provide double the speed, bandwidth, and reliability of one internet service provider (ISP). This is not limited to large houses, as even small apartments can have two internet providers. ISPs work to provide access to the vast global network of interconnected devices, such as smartphones and IoT devices, which is not directly accessible to everyone. By having two internet providers, you can enjoy the benefits of having two lanes on your internet highway, ensuring that your internet is always available and reliable.
How to plan a WiFi network?
Choose a partner capable of performing the work you want done with wireless solutions. Consider the capabilities of the service provider and their ability to perform the tasks at hand. When designing your network, ensure the wireless installation company has the necessary certifications and references for similar installations.
Use the right technology, such as 2. 4 ghz, 5 ghz, or dual radios that can propagate in both frequencies. Designing your network for 2. 4 ghz may or may not be necessary based on the types of devices and applications being used over your network. 2. 4 ghz can introduce unnecessary interference if not planned accordingly.
Controller-based, controller less, or cloud-based controllers are another major choice from a technology standpoint. All offer different advantages and have a fit for different applications and environments. Ask Core Cabling about what best wireless technology is best for you to ensure a successful wireless communication system.
In summary, choose a partner capable of performing the work you want done with wireless solutions, consider the capabilities of the service provider, and choose the right technology for your needs.
Is Home WiFi considered a LAN?
A local area network (LAN) is a network within a small geographic area, typically within the same building. Examples include home WiFi networks and small business networks. LANs can be large or small, depending on their size. They connect to the Internet at a central point, typically a router. Home LANs often use a single router, while larger spaces may use network switches for efficient packet delivery.
Can I setup Wi-Fi myself?
Internet installation can be done by yourself if your home is wired properly and if your provider offers a self-installation option. However, some providers may require a professional due to wiring issues. Self-installation can be a cost-effective solution, as it eliminates the need for a technician and is relatively easy with some technical knowledge. To determine if self-installation is possible, search for internet plans in your area and compare pricing before signing up. If you have a bit of technical know-how, you can use a kit to set up your internet.
Can I build my own Wi-Fi?
To establish a Wi-Fi network, a wireless router is required to broadcast the Wi-Fi signal from your Internet modem. Your ISP may offer a wireless router for a small monthly fee, making it an easy option for beginners. If you want to buy a router, research options and consult CNET’s guide on buying a router. Some Internet modems may already have a built-in wireless router, eliminating the need for a separate one.
How do I create a LAN network for my home?
To set up a LAN network at home, you need a router and Ethernet cables. Connect all devices to the router using Ethernet cables and configure its settings to enable LAN connectivity. Configure devices to ensure they are set up for LAN connectivity. To ensure network security, change the default login credentials, enable WPA2 encryption, change the default network name and password, disable remote management, use a strong password, regularly update router firmware, avoid connecting to public WiFi networks, and protect devices with antivirus software.
How to create a home Wi-Fi network?
A home network system is a group of devices connected to a single network and each other, including computers, printers, mobile devices, and game systems. These devices can be connected via cable for wired connections or wirelessly through Wi-Fi. A home network allows simultaneous communication and management of security settings for all networked devices from one place. Each network uses two types of IP addresses: private and public. A private IP address, assigned by the router, allows devices to communicate within the network.
A public IP address, provided by the internet service provider, represents the entire network and is essential for internet connections. The setup process depends on the type of network you want – wired or wireless. Both types typically require a modem, a router, an Ethernet hub or cables, and access points. Each of these elements contributes to the home network, ensuring a secure and efficient communication environment.
How to design a wireless network for building?
The design of a wireless network necessitates the consideration of a multitude of factors, including the nature of the site in question, point-to-point bridging, WLAN roaming, the intended applications of the network, the number of users, the construction materials utilized, the capabilities of the wireless client devices, and the infrastructure devices employed, among numerous other considerations.
📹 UniFi Design Center Feature: WiFi Coverage
UniFi Design Center makes it easy to plan out your WiFi access point (AP) placement. Simply add APs to your floor plan and turn …
Thanks again Dave. I am a retired IT manager but have been out of the game for so long that I feel literally left behind with today’s technology. I actually retired prior to the AdVent of Wi-Fi becoming the standard that it is today. (back in the day everything was hard lined many hours at a punch down block LOL) Your articles are like an advanced refresher course . I enjoy every one of them and to be quite honest they bring back so many memories to those early network/PC days . absolutely, I think you should do a VLAN follow-up.
As a farmer, mechanic, and tech person with some programming experience I love your website! ALL your articles interest me from the lessons in computer history(got my first pc in ’93), programming, your garage, your truck and light mods, and showing us how your home network is setup. It’s only slightly out of reach for most but gives us a glimpse into what we may be using eventually or parts we may want to copy ourselves. Just keep showing us around and how you do things as it all contains very valuable lessons/information. Even though I fully grasp most everything you’ve discussed I still feel I’ve learned something by the end. As mentioned, you explain things along with all the hiccups you encountered doing it yourself. This is how I try to explain things to others but it is underappreciated in most cases and seems like a waste of my breathe at times. I appreciate the way you do it. It feels like accelerated learning. Have a good one!
My UDM Pro died after 2 years of service right after attempting the latest UnifiOS update. I had a bad feeling about it and waited a while till finally decided to update. It no longer booted, thankfully I still had my old Linksys router which had 8 ethernet ports and I was able to have a functional network while I RMAd my unit. Really enjoyed your article thanks for sharing.
Fantastic article Dave! After about a year of debating on which solution to go with, I finally bit the bullet and ordered the Dream machine SE, a switch, and two of Unifi access points. It all arrives tomorrow, so glad to see you post this. As always, your content is both informative and entertaining.. Thank you!
Dave I would love to see an episode about vlans. I was trying to deploy a network at my office trying to use vlans to separate printer and server access to certain clients only. While also offering a guest network, and I still don’t understand what to do or how to implement it today. Most forums speak about it like we should be born knowing what a VLAN is. I would love to see an episode with your breakdown on it. As always thank you for your articles Dave!
OMG that house! Very nice, Dave. I use UniFi as well. I had to run cat6 in my house, man that was a job. I also used the Ubiquiti in wall access points too. So every room in the house has it’s own hard-wired ethernet and WiFI access points. Next up is setting up a media server so I can stop consuming so much data from the outside world.
Great article! A couple of clarifications: Band Steering usually works by ignoring Probe Requests in 2.4 GHz. When a client sends Probe Requests in 2.4 GHz, the infrastructure will ignore them X amount of times, causing most clients to only see the 5 GHz APs. It works… but can cause devices in 2.4 GHz to take longer to associate. Fast Roaming works by speeding up authentication when a client roams. Basically, it skips a number of steps in the association/authentication process. As a result, it’s not actually seamless, but it is fast enough that the user typically won’t notice, or the interruption in their application will be minimal. Sweet network setup!
A few years ago, my son talked me into buying a brand of router I’d never heard of. Ubiquity makes a brand called Amplifi. I bought the Amplifi router and it’s been bullet proof since. Even automatically downloads firmware updates, slick mesh points and it just works. Hat’s off to Ubiquiti for solid hardware
Other real world issues: The importance of the separate IoT and Guest networks cannot be stressed enough. Never mind the need for your internal security – a common problem with trying to get people connecting back to their work is the workplace firewall rejecting the connection because of some junk IoT device trying to explore networks. But your average home user doesn’t understand and just wants to be able to work. And the point others are making about dense construction materials is a valid reason to stress backhauling each WAP as meshing often just does not work. Even in the US with the relatively wirelessly transparent timber and sheetrock construction you can get caught out by dense brick chimneys running up the inside of houses which block signal. And older rooms you THINK are pre-sheetrock lath and plaster can turn out to be later wire mesh and plaster which makes each room a very effective Faraday Cage with the signal all being sucked to ground as it tries to pass through a wall. And one I suspect Dave does not suffer from – density of competing systems. It is not uncommon to see upwards of 40-50 competing SSID’s in a wireless survey of a home in a city block. There is just not enough spectrum to go around. A crude solution is to install outdoor high power WAP’s in the home to drown out the others. But it is not exactly neighborly and in the escalation war – your neighbors quickly retaliate leaving everyone back where they started. Leading to….. In a couple of locations we service where the landlord controls the leases in the commercial space there are tent festival events.
Dave, great minds think alike. I’m a fan of the Ubiquiti solution as well. I’m just starting the process of setting up an IOT network and would love to hear what you have had luck doing. I think the specific trickier points to set up are going to be items like… how to Cast from a phone on main network to Roku on IOT network. I’m sure the firewall rules and which rules for typical items are going to be the trickiest part of this!
There is one basic rule I try to follow: “If it doesn’t have to move around, WIRE IT.” This of course only applies to devices that actually have an Ethernet port (and the ability to have an Ethernet cable run to it), but the idea is to absolutely minimize the number of devices that use Wi-Fi to only those that absolutely need it, so the ones that are using it have far less frequency congestion to contend with. That principle alone can make a huge difference.
VLAN sounds like a great article idea! I’d love to be able to strategically expose some internal devices on the net to more than one VLAN, so I can keep a super secure on for just my stuff and stick anyone else on a passworded, but still sandboxed one, while they could still access some internal servers or other stuff.
Thanks Dave, great article. I have also been using Ubiquiti gear in my home. I had been running the Ubiquiti Console on a Raspberry pi with good results. But I just took the plunge into their camera offerings. That required that I replace the Pi with a device where I could run the Protect software. So now I have a Cloud Key Gen 2 +. My question: On which vlan do you run printers? And which network do you put the SmartTV on? Those need connectivity to family computers and phones. So I’ve been putting them on the Main VLAN. If you do a VLAN article, could you address those questions?
Man you hit a nerve on this one! we had the same issues only we went TP Link and omada controller due to cost but works like a charm! also we used Ubiquity Light Beams to make a connection between our PFSense router and another property 1000ft away. on the other property I built a solar powered job box and attached a pole with an outdoor wifi and the light beam on the property and used golf cart batteries to power it all. No power on my other property… anyway it all worked out and now we have wifi all over our mountain.
Great article! I completely agree about hardwiring APs. In fact, when working ISP tech support I always advised people to hardwire any non-portable devices to alleviate them off their wireless bandwidth, especially in apartments or densely populated areas. It’s amazing how much people rely on Wi-Fi these days, yet they take so little if any time at all to understand it.
Nice tips given here, Dave. For optimal performance, signal level should be kept above -67dBm. WiFiman is a good app to track wifi signal for iPhone+Android. In high density scenarios, where your APs coverage significantly overlap, try to reduce the transmit power to a point where you’re keeping good signal and performance. For the record, some Wi-Fi devices have either poor antenna design, or limited transmit power. Reducing transmit power will reduce the cases where your devices still indicate 3 bars of signal and yet gets poor performance. Remember the rule: “WiFi works best when APs whisper and stations shout.” Last thing: making your AP transmitting above 100mW / 20dBm is futile, as a wide range of devices won’t be able to send data beyond that power level. Hardcore advices (don’t bother if this doesn’t mean anything to you): – Set DTIM to 3 to optimize power consumption on mobile devices. – Turn on Multicast optimization, especially if you’re using your carrier’s IPTV service (country/service specific). – For 2.4GHz, disable 802.11b rates if all your devices support at least 802.11g. – Enable 802.11d (world mode) and set your country code (especially if you welcome people from foreign places, or if you live in Europe, this will make the device adjust to your local regulations). – Set your APs to ignore any signal below -83dBm on 2.4GHz. – Enable UNII-II websites and DFS if you don’t live near an airport or a weather radar (country specific, check local regulations). There’s a lot more to say, but this comment is already getting too long.
As I watch this I realize just how different youtube content creators are as many take a lot of their audiences knowledge for granted. I have watched so much content on setting up a home network, never mind WIFI, and in many cases am still left with often times basic questions. I have been researching the Ubiquiti gear for months now, and even their own site is lacking. This is a great article on home networking in general. Thank you!! Also I would never have considered the Dream Machine SE, but now that you explain how it fits into the entire ecosystem it seems a no brainer. Now with WIFI 7 just around the corner I have to decide whether I want to invest money into WIFI 6, or just wait. I’m hoping that Ubiquiti’s lack of emphasis on 6E is just them eagerly working away at the real replacement for WIFI 6. Fingers crossed. Tip for other viewers, you can never ever run too much ethernet cable. I wish I would have pulled three times the cable I did during my most recent remodel. As you elude to Dave, if you have a device that is stationary (eg. attached to a wall, or sitting on a desk) then try to hardwire it with ethernet cable. If it has an ethernet port then try and fill it. I’m trying to hardwire all of my TV’s, which means I am going to have to fish more cable, but it is what it is. Thumbs up again for a great article.
Dave, my setup almost mirrors what you explained. I started with the Linksys 54wrt and switched to unifi about 10 years ago. We use the Cisco wireless controller (WLC) at work and was pleasantly surprised at how the unifi controller seamlessly managed the network without much fuss. No dedicated H/W and most settings out of the box just work. I have since recommended/setup the unifi solution for friends and family and almost never receive the “support calls” usually disguised dinner invitation to fix stuff. The VLAN setup is pretty straightforward no CLI or in depth knowledge required – you might want to explain that in a future article.
I started down this rabbit hole with UniFi, a udm pro and the smallest ap they had. Now it’s evolved to 15 G4 bullets 2 48 port pro switches a 24 port and a 16 port pro units and a unvr. I wouldn’t say I have any regrets but I wanna do more. Thank you for your awesome content I found your website a little over a year ago and I’ve enjoyed it immensely!!
I would like to hear more about your Unifi VLAN configuration. In my experience so far, it’s easy to partition the network into VLANs, but unifi doesn’t want to step on toes and lets traffic flow between them freely. I’m curious what changes you made in order to lock these down, ESPECIALLY for an IoT VLAN, which never seems to stop growing (at least in my experience!)
Dave, very sensible advice. Things have changed since WiFi began and roaming was problematic. Ubiquiti have made it seemless. The other way of doing this is to get a single beam shaping Access Point. These things have such huge coverage that you only need the one unit. That’s not going to work in all homes but will work in any home where a single normal Access Point almost did the job.
I have a UDM Pro and even installed one with 3 AP’s at my parents in laws house. I can 100% recommend the Unifi system. Its not ” Enterprise ” or crazy settings. its more like a very good router with extended options compared to normal routers but the UI is almost as easy as a normal home router .. It has extra features like Vlans etc that require a bit more learning then a standard router and is not as powerful as PF sense in capability that is more extreme solution ( and to advanced for my ISP even when i gave them logs over their fault LOL ) The best strength is secure remote management, Solid Wifi options that make it modular and can always adjust to your needs and you dont have to adjust to your routers Wifi needs. Seamless handoff is really Seamless ! and honestly .. Unifi prices are not to bad. The only issue i have with Unifi is that its at times hard to impossible to get hardware like new AP’s, switches or cameras. But for home users i can recommend this 100% and the UDM pro even has a simple Intrusion detection and prevention system that you crank up to max and get some extra protection compared to normal firewall. oh and the second negative with Unifi is that the AP’s LED light get very dim already after a year … for some strange reason Unifi scims a bit on LED quality .. its just visual in the end and does not really mean anything
Could you do a vid on moca adaptors? We just cut the cord and got 1 gig fiber installed. We use roku sticks, differant, but saved close to 175 a month on the crappy basic cable that dropped all the time. That said, since my shop is close to 200 ft from my house and i have all that cable running every were and can’t afford to run cat 6 or 7 that far i did the moca 2.5 adaptors. Works great for people on a budget. I get the full 1 gig in my shop. Now i have to upgrade a few older pc’s, while they have i gig nics on board I can only get around 480 ish up and down.
@Dave’s Garage Great article Dave! Where did you get the translucent Cat terminator patch cables from? I did the same thing and wanted the switch lights to pass through the connector for ‘an effect’. I found mine at Infinite Cables, but didn’t see any others available online. Your patch cables look way different (boxier, different translucence, and different clips). Do you mind sharing where you got them?
You also need network separation using VLAN’s if you have more than one network, I might live completely alone but I have one wireless network for my IoT devices that is completely separated from my own network. Then there is also a network for guests, an open network for passersby. I have VLAN’s for every network including my VPN, there is a bunch of network filtering happening as well and QoS to make sure nobody on my network disturbs my gaming sessions! I have learned to-do all this during my student years, when torrents were brand new and the average connection had 1MBit upload… you can imagine how slow such a network gets with seven users. So ever since, I implement QoS and VLAN’s.
Great article, but I was hoping for a way to improve my setup without shelling out a boatload of money. I currently have 3 hard-wired TP-Link access points in our over-sized L-shaped 2-story house in Texas. The TP-Link AP’s cost a total of $120 and have been going strong for a few years. I’ll just never be able to afford Ubiquity gear 😭I should move to a smaller house 🤪
Learned the hard way .. make sure you have cold spares laying around for your unifi stuff because if you have problems, their support is notoriously slow and you can be without a device for a while while it is sent in for rma… If you manage your own stuff, do yourself the favor. If you pay someone else to do your network, then they should be able to support you.
My house is a bit smaller but I am using five Unifi access points. I’m using slightly older UAP-AC-Pro and UAP-nanoHD access points. All of my APs have a 1Gbps PoE network connection. I could easily get away with less but bandwidth and reliability may be hampered. My APs can see nearly 500 other SSIDs in the neighborhood. My APs monitor websites and can de-power the transmission power to limit their range automatically. I have some variability throughout my property but in doing speed tests, the weakest area of my property provides at least 200 Mbps up and down, where most is around 400 Mbps up and down. I do my speed tests using both publicly available speed tests as well as my own speed test server running LibreSpeed. For devices that use WiFi, that should be plenty of bandwidth. If you need better bandwidth, I have plenty of network jacks throughout the house. I run my Unifi controller (UniFi Network Application) on a Ubuntu 22.04.2 VM. Like Dave, I have separate VLANs for my personal devices, IoT devices, and guests. I also include a VLAN for WiFi purposes for cameras. My camera network though has no direct access to the Internet, as I don’t want them to report home to their manufacturer. The network article recorder has access to the camera network as well as another network. I have other wired VLANs for different web services operating on VMs. I don’t use Ubiquiti’s router though, I instead use pfSense Plus. Just after you enter my house, I have a picture frame that contains two custom-stylized QR codes.
Just a head’s up: VLANs alone do not limit access across VLANs. A device on one VLAN could communicate with equipment on another VLAN via any device permitted to forward packets. The exception is guest networks, which have firewalling in place by default to isolate devices connecting to that network. On your non-guest VLANs, you should consider what you need & want, then configure the firewall accordingly. Another tip: Produce QR codes and flash NFC tags with the connection information for your guest network, then visitors can connect to that network without typing in a PSK and you don’t need to leave the guest network SSID open.
Dave, love your website. We just installed a Dream Machine SE at our church along with 3 AP, 2 Lite’s and one Long Range unit, we’re still waiting for the 2 wall units.. There is also a 24 port Pro POE in the mix. Setup was very straight forward. We have 3 VLAN’s (admin, public and A/V). Ran into what appears to be a known issue with the Dream Machine and our BlackMagic streamer. article performance suffers when running through the DM. If you bypass it using the good old Lynksys WRT54G (old but solid is super easy to set up) the problem goes away. So far no response from Ubiquity after opening a ticket. The install is about as straight forward as it gets, no routing rules, IDS or such.. That said, I’m still going to upgrade my home system to Ubiquiti. A few U6 Lite’s and I’m good to go.
I will admit you lost me in a lot of this but is it also important the speed you pay for from your internet providider? The package I have is on Fibre boradband it is fast enough for me but they also offer faster packages. Also providoers can throttle your internet so no matter what equipment you install it won’t go any faster, you only get what you pay for, I’m in the UK by the way.
I’m already “sub’bed”, so I can’t do that again, and I can only give this article ONE “like”, so a message that this was awesome will have to suffice. I.e., I’d like to see the upcoming VLAN article too. At 2:05, you talk about “everybody in the house is a wireless connoisseur”. Then “no matter what the actual problem is any failed or slow connection to any site …”, I thought they were going to say, “Dad, it’s YOUR fault!” Throughout the rest of the article, it reinforced the thought that if anything does go wrong, it absolutely IS your fault 🤣 (job security)! Thanks for the fun and informative article.
Interesting topic from the standpoint of just an overview of wired APs and management. But 99.9% of homes can now be much more easily covered with a good wireless mesh network, especially one that has dedicated backhaul website(s) for the satellite connections. I’m easily covering about 10,000 square feet with a base + 2 interior + 1 exterior mesh nodes from NG Orbi.
I “solved” it by having Ethernet in nearly every room of the house when it was built… And 3 Ubiquiti APs… The third was required because I found out the hard way that while they say they are omnidirectional, Ubiquiti APs aren’t great at sending a signal through the bottom of the unit. That said, looking forward to trying out a few of these tips. The complaints I get from the kids tends to be more about their hardwired game PCs…
I’ve been using a Unifi AP since about 2019, and now have 3 around the house. When I rebuilt my network (then still in an apartment) around 2014, I used a Ubiquiti Edgemax router, but didn’t go with a Unifi AP initially. Since I only needed one, I didn’t want a system that required a controller, and at that time they only used a special passive 24V PoE mode. So I went through two different brands of APs for a while, which each had various problems (mostly related to either VLANs, IPv6, or RADIUS). Eventually I decided just to get a Unifi after they switched to standard 802.3af, and by that time I had a VM server set up for other applications I could run the controller on. They’ve definitely figured out how to dominate the market for small installations that need more professional features. I think the key was pricing the entry level APs around $100 and not requiring dedicated hardware or software licensing for the controller.
I’d like to hear more about your Crestron home automation. My experience with Crestron (and AMX) is that only technicians who would for a certified Crestron installers have the tools to configure and maintain the systems. That’s definitely a no-go for someone like me who wants to be able to configure a home automation system myself.
It is a bit easier in most US houses compared to most European houses. I run a network across two houses and three families. In such a case you come to appreciate POE and VLAN — and professional equipment. My next step is to include a UPS. Having set up VLANs already I’d like to see a pro’s advice. I’m the learning by doing type and growing with experiences (aka errors).
One trick when you deploy wifi is turn the RF power down to as low as you can when running multiple APs. Then you get less chance of APs impacting others and you can greater reuse of websites. With everything shouting at full power you can lose bandwidth. Also take care to select non overlapping websites.
Yes, I have heard the phrase may times “Dad, the network is down” – latest = this morning. The cries have reduced as both my boys are in College. I really like your setup. Much less “hacky” than mine. Having separate VLANS would be a nice feature. I have thought about trying to set that up but it is too clumsy to do with what I have now.
Thank you for doing this! I had been looking at Ubiquti for a little while, and considering an alternative to my Netgear Nighthawk for a few months. The 5Ghz band continuously fails out, and causes me more havoc than I want. But this was a good look into what I am going to need to get started. And please please PLEASE do a VLAN article. I don’t think people understand the power of VLANs and need to know, especially after some of the stuff Linus reported on regarding a third party cheap android TV box.
Okay, so look: In the wide range of excellent Dave articles, this one takes the cake! I mean come on, the dog even joined in! I LOVE IT Dave! Glad the family played along. I help out friend’s who have the same “Dad issues.” Never enough bandwidth, always too many devices. Every kid “needs” a mobile, laptop, tablet, their own Roku/Apple TV/yada, and the IOT devices wreck 2.4GHz if left uncontrolled. Thank you for doing this. I shared it (after perusal it four or five times and laughing each time!) with a few dozen friends. BTW all of them seem to LOVE your website! I tell them to Like & Subscribe. Oh and the book?–It’s on everyone’s Amazon birthday/Christmas list. Please keep these great articles coming! And say “Hi” to the family from all of us.
By looking at your house I suspect you don’t run into the problems most people run into, in many neighborhoods there are 20 other families with WIFI and the spectrum is full. Many of these other WIFI devices are cheap and dirty broadcasters. In these neighborhoods people add more WIFI’s to there own networks trying to cover weak spots, but the next door neighbor now gets blasted with signal from the newly added WIFI, so they add another WIFI Ad infinitum. Now we have WIFI’s screaming trying to be heard. I.E. Everyone in a room screaming at each other and no one can understand what anybody is saying. In these complex environments the key is to hardwire everything possible. Reduce the number of WIFI’s and properly manage the spectrum. As we can expect that last part will never happen without some universal management system like the CBRS system currently being used for fixed wireless systems in the 3.6Ghz band. Love your website and the incites into the Microsoft inner workings. I have been in the computer biz since the original Commadore Vic 20. 20 mot the newer 64 LOL
Dave, love this article, if only that someone with real credentials has validated to my wife that I’m not insane for going with this crazy, expensive, rackmount wifi gear and APs throughout. 😄. That said, despite youtube tutorial after youtube tutorial, Unifi’s firewall rules continue to befuddle me. Yes, please on a Unifi vlan/firewall article!
Sorry Dave we cant do that You did nice vid but the majority of ppl wont even know the brand name ubiquity nvm afford anything they make Try again with say a tplink unit and custom pfsense router along eith say a 12 port 2.5gb switch and you may hit more typical power users And the majority wont have anything beyond the pos router modem combo supplied by their isp And then there are those that know better but are still stuck with aformentioned isp crap just because esp here in canuckistan Esp while the monopoly the crtc continue to allow their buddies at hell / robbers / slogeco etc shaft canucks worse than any other G country on the planet! Ffs a friend in the Netherlands has had direct fiber to his home for 20N YEARS!!! And he pays less a every 6 months for such than I (I managed to get as a very sweet nonpublic deal) here for a fraction of his speed.. inget a theoretical max 1.5gb.. per month!!!
Is this your son in the beginning? He looks like Barron Trump 😄 Great looking kids and wife Dave. This is such a good topic. I know Band steering but I never really found it to be very reliable so I still seperate my SSIDs. In Germany we have an ecosystem called Fritz! and in my opinion it is very capable hardware even for small business use. They market their hardware under Wifi Mesh which apparently requires acces point steering, band steering and Ap synchronization. The dream machine looks very interesting, cool features. Maybe in the future it will be a viable option for me. I know its more of a marketing term but what generation WiFi do you use – 5, 6, 7?
It seems to me that the hardest thing to get through to people is that if you have a sprawling property with multiple outbuildings and you want great WiFi coverage, it’s not going to be cheap. Even so, the placement of access points needs to be done intelligently. A while back I removed three out of four access points from a customer’s site (and removed 4 SSIDs), fine-tuned the configuration, and in the process increased their network speeds by 5x. With WiFi, more isn’t necessarily better.
Dave, you are the man. The man I need to ask this questions: Is there any router or switch that has automatic blocking of inappropriate content on the net? Right now I block in the switch that’s insanely difficult and time consuming. Yes, most people say end point software, but that seems dumb to me. First of all you have to install it on every device. As you well know that could be very time consuming and I don’t want the network bogged down with junk that’s going to be blocked at the end point anyway. Seems to me the best way is to block it before it even hits the network. Also if someone is a guest on your network, you have no control over what they access. I have been trying to find something like this but has the added feature to block inappropriate content at the start. Can you recommend something? Yes, I really need help on VLANS so yes, thumbs up for a future article on that.
I love SonicWALL it has the same (or most) features you’ve showed. It also has the wifi controller built in. Unfortunately, some functions are behind a yearly subscription to be unlocked. I use a second hand NSA 4600 and a 24-port HP Procurve 2610-24-PWR PoE switch for my core. I further have a HP Procurve Switch 1800-8G, HP Procurve V1810-8G two SonicPoint ACe’s. Backup is done by my Synology RackStation RS214. Still fiddeling to get my Bosch FLEXIDOME IP indoor 4000 HD to work permanently.
When using cameras from “off shore”, I simply don’t input the default gateway when assigning an IP address. Since the the camera in question now has no doorway to the internet, it can only talk to the server running my security camera software. That along with being on its own Vlan, my blue iris install is pretty well isolated.
In any case… Dave, you have FANTASTIC HARDWARE AT HOME… 100% 👍A matter of personal choice I think … but as far as I’m concerned from router, to access point to everything else I’ve always chosen TP-LINK and I’m not writing it because I earn something but because it’s the truth. Having everything TP-LINK I noticed that I was able to configure and maximize all connections.
nice article, do you have any information on the systems power consumption, wifi controller ap’s switches, routing, poe cameras etc? i have gone pretty deep into the home automation side of things and like you have vlans for iot devices, guests etc. currently im running older commercial cisco equipment its solid but its pretty power hungry. i’m also pretty deep into the whole solar sustainable power thing so the main goals of upgrading are to add wifi 6e, better roaming, consolidate systems combining security cameras, wifi, structured network min 2.5gbps etc but i also want to reduce power consumption and lower my overall base load to lower my grid reliance improve battery run time. any data you have would be appreciated.
im using ONE UDR and ONE Unifi AC lite in the back yard (not in the winter) My house: 1902, 3 stories, plaster walls. about 1800 sq ft i have 300/300 Fios fiber i can achieve almost 300 down, 100 up, on third floor (Atic room. i also have a G3 instant camera and 500 GB micro sd card total cost. around $360
WiFi was a mistake. Massive infrastructue upheaval and a HEAVY universal blanket of EMF… for what? > Higher Latency > Marginal bandwidth > Massive and consistent connection interruptions. All so that some haughty Normoids can stream Angry Birds and low-bitrate Marveltrash onto their iSpyphones? Wire up some G*D* Ethernet, Set up your Office, Sit/Stand your butt at a REAL computer, and plug in. Time to roll back the ‘wireless’ tide – this is one time where it WAS okay to gatekeep a little bit 😉 Good technical details in any case tho, thanks dave.
I bought into the unifi network and immediately asked myself what the heck I was doing for the 10 years. I did purchase a UDM pro, however, my rural Canadian ISP needs my equipment to run an MTU of 1400. Since there’s no MTU config, I tried setting the clamping size reducing headers from the 1400 available. Wireshark still shows packets 1500+ in size heading towards my ISP. I installed a 3rd party router that lets me configure my MTU, however that switch annoys me, double NATs my network, and sometime keeps me from sleeping at night knowing it’s there doing the UDMs job for only 50 bucks compared to unifi amounts of cash the UDM was. Frustrating.
Great vid Dave, I’m new to your website and we’re building 280sqm (3000sqft) soon. Three questions… 1. Is the Dream machine a modem/router too? 2. If not, is it important to use a modem/router that’s the same ecosystem as your switch? E.g. do you need a ubiquiti modem/router? 3. Can you explain the VLAN thing a bit more in another vid! Cheers.
I wish my house was “already set up with cat 6 runs back to a server room.” My house was, unfortunately, built before cat6 was invented. Or, before (electronic) computers were invented, for that matter. I’m lucky I have ELECTRICITY in most of my rooms. One of my recent projects was to install romex and 3-wire outlets so that I could actually have proper grounding.
Also, ther are a bunch of plugins and items to add Unifi to your Home Assistant if you have that setup. My network is bigger and more complex then yours here…. Also, setting up a IoT SSID/Subnet/VLAN is also good, and even if you wanted to, a GUEST SSID/SUBNET/VLAN, and your default network. For my protect (20 or so cams around my house), since they are all external, All those ports are MAC locked and VLAN locked… So only that MAC address will be able to auth through. The MAC may be on the cam, or an attacker may get the mac by plugging in to a switch or computer to grab it, but then it lands into a segragated VLAN and subnet. IPs are hard coded there and I have DHCP guarding so it will overtake any malicious DHCP…. But then that VLAN only has access to the dedicated Protect port to write cam data one way and only can talk back over the dedicated port for firmware updates from my NVR… .My Unifi NVR then uses the 10gig SFP+ port to go to my 10Gig Agg switch via DAC and can only talk to to the unifi cloud services to allow me to access the NVR and get firmware updates and protect updates… no other sites or IP address or any ports are allowed out or in on that VLAN. Also, the protect VLAN is locked on all ports from talking to any other device on the VLAN and any other subnet/vlan…
I need just one extender. I bought a Netgear unit, and I could not get it to work reliably. It would work for anywhere from a few minutes to at most an hour then our home Wi-Fi would “all” stop working until I unplugged the Netgear then the Wi-Fi would work again minus the extender. What a time sink that turned out to be with no solution.
I have a similar setup but my house is much smaller. I have an intel NUC running VMware ESXi and I have my UniFi controller installed in a vm there, I have two APs connected to a 16 port Ubiquiti switch, a Fortigate 60E firewall running in VDOM mode for my main gateway and a 16 port net gear switch downstairs in the living room servicing the uplink to my cable modem and providing wired access to everything in my entertainment center. Branching off the 16 port Ubiquiti switch is a small 5 port managed TP-Link switch under my desk providing wired access for my PC. I run a public Wi-Fi that’s open to everyone that tunnels to a computer club’s data center that provides free Wi-Fi (my house is in the city), plus I have encrypted main, guests and IoT SSIDs and VLANs
Watching this out of curiosity, as I’m having a TP-Link business solution in my house, thinking that I have a lot with 4 AP’s, and article starts with ‘I have 10AP’s’ LOL. I do agree with the hardwire-ing the AP’s, mine are all hardwired (3indoor, 1 outdoor), all PoE powered, via a PoE switch. I do use a hardware controllor though, but configured seamless roaming, what just works perfectly. No hassle with interuptions, let the controller do the hand of. Oh and yeah, I’m using an all 10GB network, more then enough bandwitdh for here in the house.
Like you I’m old enough to remember pre 802.11b days.. Breezelan had pcmcia cards that handled seemless hand off to 60mph! Wavelan had 915mhz ap’s that with a 5w amp and 14db patch panel not only got through the house, but through the neighbors to ¼ mile away! I was trying to start my own broadband WISP back in the nineties…
I particularly enjoy the what I’m going to assume was a decision that was made while drunk and not an attempt to effectively double the entry price, is the dream machine pro SE. Does everything I need and has enough poe ports for my needs…….and then it doesn’t. Multi 10g sfp+ WAN ports even a 2.5gb rg45 WAN port. However by all means poe ports should be limited to 1g. It’s not like the WiFi7 AP needs 2.5 and poe. Of course it’s an easily solved problem for another 450 that didn’t need to exist. Even after adding the 24 2.5 poe via sfp+ now makes the 2.5 rj45 WAN make no sense. Maybe they could have made the decision to have a rj45 multi gig LAN vs needing an adaptor as no isp modem is going to use spf+ out. But then I have the crazy idea they could have at least sent poe through the 2.5 making it actually useful. They almost had everything I need in one 1u box.
Hmm frw things. Don’t expect even in 2023 for some companies clients to pay any attention to band steering. Band Steering is simply a recommendation to move to 6GHz so some name companies pay no attention whatsoever. If you want to be happy, lose 2.4GHz or have a separate 2.4 SSID Keep an eye on the DFS websites, if you find your devices vacating a website due to weather radar then blacklist it on your controller. Set your access points to reject any client slower than 12M bits to lose the awful 802.11a clients which destroy what little bandwidth 2.4GHz provides. Don’t have more than 4 SSID it eats too much time with the beacon frames (although mitigated with 802.11ax it’s unlikely that every device is ax or above.) Certain companies claim their clients are 802.11k compliant, but in reality they ignore the AP saying connect to this other AP instead. So not use hidden SSIDs they add no security, and certain PC manufacturers do not send probe frames on DFS websites therefore the client devices will never find a SSID on a DFS website (spent 2 days in Milan before I discovered why some handheld PCs couldn’t find the network at one end of a building) Allow your reputable Wi-Fi controller or router decide upon the power level, if you have poor coverage turning the power up never helps. Access Points should be in as open a space as possible, (think of it like a light) don’t tuck access points or routers in cupboards, begins things or in alcoves. Think of them like a light, a light would have shadows in that position then you will have radio shadows with poor coverage Be a good neighbour (and hopefully yours will reciprocate) only use websites 1, 6 and 11 in the 2.
Great article. Something that wasn’t covered was whether all the APs should have different SSIDs or the same and similarly for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz websites. i.e. if you were using 2 WAPs do you just give them all the same name (if you can even do that) or potentially end up with 4 SSIDs? Maybe this was covered under the fast roaming / handoff section.
Dave, Awesome setup. Ubiquiti hardware is Prosumer, Enthusiast, absolutely not enterprise as much as they market it as such because it lacks a lot of the redundancy features required for enterprise. their nearest compeditor is TP-Link Omada, which while more stable, is not as feature rich as Ubi stuff. I looked at both and went Omada for mine years ago. (But like all nuanced things, everyones use case is different, this is why I say you have an awesome setup!!) 😀 absolutely guides for more of Ubi to help those who get treated poorly by Ubi and in many cases new UI’s which I know Ubi delayed their ‘V2’ one for ages and IT staff had to swap between v1 and v2 so often to turn stuff on and off.. it was such a crux for many, so new guides would always be welcome as the software develops. 😀 Fun fact. the 802.11 k and V standards are the actual standards so ‘Mesh’ networking is marketing buzz wording.. – Simply Lookup “802.11K/V Standards” and you can see that many things like that can do it. but like you, decades ago, wireless was Horrible.. all of this goes back to ATnT America taking the Australian CSIRO over who owned Wifi and then when ATnT lost they called us a Patent troll. hah. 😛 anyways, like you, Autism. Tech is amazing. fun. and please. keep it up! <3 love your work and followed you from very early at the start and your articles have gotten really awesome. 😀
I can give all you the down to earth version of what he is trying to say and do here if you feel overwhelmed here, and you might. All of this really boils down to just money. If you are having issues in your house with Wifi on a daily basis and, you have the extra money, do this. Call up your ISP and explore the next tier of speed you can get, then, provide your own WiFi 6 router. I would suggest something in the $200+ range or beyond if you can afford it. You want wifi-6. Again, to avoid all of the technical jargon, just trust me, you want to be in the $200 and beyond range. Why? better power, processing and range. it really is that simple. We have Google Fiber 2gig service here in Kansas City, 4 people and never any complaints. We all share a space of about 2800 square feet not including a rather large patio and driveway. I have an Asus ROG Rapture WiFi 6 Gaming Router, $350 from Amazon and it covers all of us well. I’ve located the router in a central location and everyone is at full bars. And yes Dave, I can get every single bit of bandwidth ( pun intended ) out of this connection. Usenet, 100 concurrent connections, 240MB/s down. That’s a 10gb file down in around 1 min 10+, that is, if you were curious. BTW, old skool Amiga guy here. I used to live in Topeka, Kansas, an hour from us here in Kansas City and I have a signed Amiga 2000 from Tim Jenison as well as an unopened Amiga 4000 that I refuse to open, yes the battery may have destroyed the board, a new Amiga 1200 in the “party pack” box still, and a 10/10 condition Amiga 500 without a box.
Linksys WRT54G! I used the ‘S’ variant for many years. I was so surprised when just switching to the vanilla 2.4/5-GHz router from Spectrum suddenly improved my signal everywhere. I can even get connected in a house addition in the back, which I assumed would always be a dead spot (because of the house’s outside wall blocking the signal, besides the added distance to the router). I don’t have a beautiful mansion like yours, so I don’t have to jump through all those hoops to get coverage. But I appreciate you taking the time to spread the knowledge anyway.
My demands are miniscule. I have 4 desktop PCs, about 16 wireless devices, 3 TVs, 6 gaming consoles and a couple of printers. I upgraded my Wifi to the new Orbi and that solved all my wifi issues. The PCs, TVs and 2 of the consoles are hardwired through GB ethernet. The rest just use wifi. In Australia, my internet peaks at 300mbps, so having anything more than I have is pointless.
I use the UDM Pro and UniFi AP’s/Switches as well, and do this professionally with the most expensive to cheapest solutions. UniFi is a fantastic bang for the buck. The first thing I’d add, don’t use more than 4 SSID’s. It will quickly kill performance. Using vlans for iot devices can cause some unintended consequences, proceed with caution! The easiest way to prevent things talking to China, give them static ip’s with no gateway. And make sure anything with a software firewall, has it enabled! 😉
I’m a sys admin and spent like 2 weeks finding a good wifi system for my home. (Probably why your article hit my recommended list) DreamMachine and U AP-s are well out of budget unfortunately (that would have been my nr 1 go-to) I even waited patiently over 2 years for several clients to drop their old APs and move onto newer technologies 🙂 But I ultimately opted to buy 2x ASUS AX6000 Wireless routers. Retail combined they’re about 600€ but I managed to get the price down a bit thanks to the company I’m at. They support everything you mentioned and even have Wifi6 and Wifi6E (optional) plus they both have 2x 2,5Gbit Eth connections. Pretty future proof investment. My house is about 25 meters in length with about the same for the backyard. I have both AP-s at each end of the house, at different floors and I can now easily move from one end of the property to the other and between floors without my Teams calls dropping and trying desperately connecting to the old AP-s. I ran an eth cable to connect both. Pure magic if you ask me. Everything you mentioned was spot on. Pretty good for a dad in a garage 🙂 Also.. what are you doing with all of that property? :O
About 80% of modern IT hardware implementation falls into two categories. Taking one physical object and dividing it into multiple virtual instances – hard drive partitions, virtual servers, network switches/VLANs. Or taking multiple physical objects and combining them into a single virtual instance – RAID, link aggregation, server clusters VLANs are functionally equivalent to having multiple physical network switches that are unconnected to each other. In the real world, you could have a single 48-port switch with a different VLAN ID assigned to each port – the equivalent of 48 individual switches. For devices to communicate with each other, a firewall/router is required that can read the VLAN ID and make a decision about whether to allow/deny the traffic
Two tips, if being ultra secure is the goal turn off fast roaming 802.11r the preauthorise can be abused for access to your network. Tip two, with that many IoT light bulbs the RF must be a soup, lock your “study” IoT devices to the “study” AP and turn down the RF power of the 2.4 network. Less chatting = more RF space for devices that need it.
Hello Dave. I always enjoy your articles. Anything with WiFi is bound to get my attention, as I worked in the standards group for a number of years. My home network is much simpler than yours – I don’t have a bunch of your requirements. Two of mine are: 1) very cheap (I’m retired, and it’s hobby money) and 2) fun to play with. To that end, I run second-hand ebay Meraki 18 APs running openwrt, with a pfsense firewall on an old Intel NUC. A poe switch, and dual internet connections complete the layout. To get the openwrt running on Meraki 18s, you can get them pre-flashed on EBAY from time to time, or spend $50 on the flash programmer and spend a few minutes soldering headers onto the Meraki mainboard, and you can flash them yourself. I have a VLAN for guest access, which has its own ssid and rules inside the firewall.
Great article, thanks. What I’d love to see is a something targeted at “in between” people like me. I’m in the UK with a UDM (non pro) & 16 port POE lite switch sitting in a mess of cables in my utility room, and a couple of Unifi APs, powered by a non-unifi POE switch in my loft. I really need to tidy this all up, get at least one more AP and a bigger unifi POE switch. Problem is, I then seem to be in the territory of a fully racked system with a massive upgrade cost. Would love to see something discussing something between these extremes….
I’m very disappointed in Ubiquiti / UniFi attention to quality and could never recommend them. In particular their updates are really flaky with evidently very poor or non-existent regression testing. Some 2.4 devices like ScanSnaps and wireless printers will suddenly stop working when an AP update is applied. Brutal to diagnose, then to fix you have to shut off auto-update (which can be confusing in the UI). This means you might miss out on important security updates but at least your devices work. Then you’re on your own to figure out which firmware update to apply manually in the future – and cross your fingers that it actually works. If you like headaches, go for it, otherwise I’d recommend buying something else.
@DavesGarage I hope you are on a DHCP connection from Comcast. As I am sure you know better than most people, while it’s not a huge problem, it could be a security risk esposing your public WAN IP. Also, you suggested that a wireless extender is a viable option to eliminate dead spots in wifi coverage. I highly recommend against using anything marketed as a “wireless extender” or “wifi extender” as these devices (generally) halve the available bandwidth and can add to RF congestion. I always recommend a full wireless AP or alternatively a mesh system and never use an extender, much better results.
Thank you. Yes please, VLan articles would be great. Much needed. Along with the why, when how and alternatives and do’s and dont’s but please always discuss the security side to do things and offer an alternative with minimal compromise etc. Thank you for your contributions and helpfulness. Great website.
I have also a “huge” house but i went for cheap mikrotiks. The config is not that easy, you have to know what you are doing, but you can get very cheaply acces points. I only need wifi for computers in my living room so this is the only place with 5ghz network, other ap’s have 2.4GHz connections, at the end, tablets and cell phones only need 2.4GHz to scroll through tiktok. I have a very cheap access point at my outdoor cinema place and it handled 1080p article streaming and multiple “gadgets” from my family and friends at once, for me, website spacing and router placement is far more important than router generation, most users can comfortably do with 20-30mbps connection if it is solid. I have most of my access points connected to 100 mbps switch. Mikrotik have also a very nice option for doing things like vlan (EOIP), so i can use old unmanaged switches for most things. I think that the most underestimated tip for current times is to get (in simplest scenario that 1 ap covers everything) any old acces point and set it fot IoT network, so when the broadband operator gives you new router, you just plug the second AP with IoT network and have less to worry.
How in the f are you getting months of record time off a single 100tb hd. I’ve got 5 4k cameras plugged into the largest drive the vendor would support (swan) and I get around 7 days. It’s been a couple years since I tinkered with it but I thought it was a 10tb drive. Recording 4k and 30fps is alot of 12mp photos. Are you using some form of additional compression to get that much time recorded? Also what vendor are you using for your cameras? I could easily switch as I’ve already run all the cables to one point. I guess one last question, are you using ptz or standard cameras with IR? I’m also assuming your recording 4k as well. One other comment. Sounds like your using vlan tagging as a form of security but I thought that is very unreliable as it’s just a tag. Couldn’t an attacking device just change it’s vlan tag an roam across your network? Thanks for the articles, they are really great and well done.
Disclaimer, all of this cost a LOT of money, ubiquiti is cheaper than most other labels, but it’s still very costly. You can use a sbc, like a raspberry pi to install the control interface (run it in docker) and only buy the ubiquiti “dumb ap” access points. A dream machine in europe cost 324euro (incl VAT), quite a bit more than a sbc like raspberry pi or other arm64 sbc. But if you have the money, the dream machine is more stable in the long run where you don’t have to play around with updating the rpi ubiquti interface etc. But to be honest, I have run the interface on a nanopi neo3 (running armbian, not even a raspberry pi) for more than a year and only ONCE did I have to fix the docker containter (and it was probably my fault, I forgot to extend the storage so it ran out of disk space), and since I had the ubiquity config file backed up, I could just reinstall the interface (pull the latest docker image) and load the config file. Was done in less than 20 mins.
Great article, great information. Yes, please do dedicated VLAN article. How about your security cameras? Do you (or should others) set up these cameras in a separate isolated VLAN? Thanks for the discussion of newer wifi features such as fast roaming and how Unifi’s management features can optimize wifi.
I’ve been thinking about putting all my smart lights on their own subnet Wi-Fi. First I tested my theory by unplugging all of the smart lights. I can’t believe how much more responsive my devices became when I unplug them. So maybe there’s just too many devices on the same website. Maybe a Wireless-G for all of the lights, and wireless-ac for the House? And before anyone says anything bad about slower signals, don’t underestimate the lower websites. I grew up in the times of 900 MHz cordless house phones. You could go all the way to the edge of the yard and then some. It’s always a trade-off between distance and bandwidth. You could have super-high speeds real close, but a piece of paper can block your signal. Or you could have slower speeds to reach much further distantces. All I can say is sure is thank God for multiplexing.
Regarding the VLAN segregation you talked about at the end… If all IoT devices are on their own VLAN, separate from the one that everyone connects their phones to, which VLAN do you put Alexa / Google Assistant devices on? If they’re not on the same network as your phone, your phone can’t see what they’re doing or control them (like for controlling music). And if the assistants aren’t on the same network as the IoT devices, the assistants can’t control those when you try to give voice commands. Or at least that’s my understanding/experience — I’ve had enough trouble trying to get two wired WiFi access points to work together on the same SSID, and I’ve never even attempted a setup remotely as complicated as yours.
I’d like to see a article going over the Dream Machine settings, VLAN’s, how to separate and make sure one VLAN can’t access another, how to allow a device on one VLAN to access a device on another (for example a Fire Cube running Kodi to have access to a specific folder(s) on a Synology NAS where the article files are stored), etc.
I understand wanting to do things “right.” As a network engineer, I do that at work. But when I’m setting up a home network for someone, it’s rare that they are willing to spend the money to use Ubiquity. I usually use the latest Linksys WAP/router and seperate the IoT stuff as much as possible. Coverage is never as good as I want to be and I usually end up with a second WAP, hopefully wired. Handoff is not perfect. Hopefully these new standards will improve roaming.
Heh wifi has to accept any and all interference. As someone who has a small house (950 sq feet), I used to have to use 3 access points. Now, with mesh networking, things work better. I live by high tension high voltage power lines, so the RF noise floor is quite high. I use Asus equipment. Ubiquiti is good, I used them for a customer. The UDM as the main router/controller works beautifully. The only issue is the customers shop has an older snap on tablet that has issues talking to a wifi network with multiple access points. If you can’t get ubiquiti due to supply chain issues, TP Link also has something similar with their Omada line.
Well, this proof people don’t do well when they’re angry. A calm dad would have bought a tri-band mesh set for 400$, like TP-Link Deco for example, set it up via the mobile phone app in 10 minutes, used the rest of the time to convince his son that he doesn’t really need 1Gbps wifi on the toilet, those vids will lead to the same result even in 720p” 🙂
I was running a public AP at the house here until one of the neighbors downloaded some copywritten material that was being tracked for, and we got a copyright strike. I’ll make the vlan available with WPA2 when we have guests staying for more than a few hours, but otherwise it’s disabled. Both of us living in the house have (or have had) work from home options available to us. One of the things I did was establish unique vlans for each of us for our work computers. Those do have access to the internet, but not to any other vlan’s in the house. Mostly this is because I’ve worked in corporate enviroments shutting down network zones because of Code Red, Nimda, and a few other opportunistic viri over the years. My view is that if either of our corporate computers gets infected, or one of the home computers, or even an IoT device compromise happens, each vlan is protected from the others. Neither of us have needed to access services in the house beyond the vlan’s we’re working from, for our work computers. Sure printing to the HP LaserJet 400 in the basement would be a nice feature to have, but our companies are also aware this presents it’s own collection of issues. So it doesn’t happen. That said, she does have a LaserJet MPC printer in her office that she’s used to scan documents for work (Print, sign, scan upload gets a lot more complicated if you have to go to the corporate office in the midst of COVID lock downs.) That said, if you don’t need those capabilities, a much smaller set of vlans is a bit easier to manage.
I hate Unifi. It has improved with cloud key 2+, but before that, had nothing but management nightmares with clients that have them and something goes wrong. And Ubiquity keeps changing the configuration platform that often guides end up being wrong. DHCP management is also horrible, especially if you want reservations and exclusions.
Few thing I can recommend for a better wifi experience. Never power the AP all the way up. For less dense areas (which most houses are) you can power the AP to about 50% (17 dBm or 50 mW) Always use 5 GHz if possible. Use different websites. If you have neighbors use a free spectrum analyzer to see available websites. Disable lower data rates as your wifi will be as fast as the slowest device and you can minimize “sticky” devices. Meaning a deivee is gonnna statly connected as long as it can at a really low data rate slowing everyone down. I have unifi equipment and had to disable band steering and some other settings because it was causing issues with iphones in my house so check for weird bugs like that.