Dangers of the IOT Thread!

BoardsMember

bk wrote: »

Actually, if you turn off the wifi on the ISP router, but leave the ISP router to continue as the DHCP server (router) then all devices connected directly to the ISP router by ethernet or connected to the UAP wifi should all be seen to be on the same network as they are in fact on the same network.

Only if the app is doing something really weird, like looking at the wifi being used, might it cause a problem, but it really shouldn't do that.

thanks, yes, that makes sense, I was overly concentrating on connection method rather than IP address/subnet etc. Cheers!

Stoner

I've a small switch in my AV cab.

I've the amp PS4 , fire TV ,TV, hue hub, media PC, lightwaverf hub, smartThings hub and xaomi all plugged into it.

I've a whole house wifi point downstairs and the ISP router upstairs with WiFi turned off but acting as the server as BK indicated. I've no issues bar the amp loosing the IP address as I don't use it enough and the session dies and I'm too lazy to reserve a spot for it and changed it to fixed ip.

So that's similar to the situation BK suggested everything can talk to each other.

BoardsMember

Stoner wrote: »

I've a small switch in my AV cab.

I've the amp PS4 , fire TV ,TV, hue hub, media PC, lightwaverf hub, smartThings hub and xaomi all plugged into it.

I've a whole house wifi point downstairs and the ISP router upstairs with WiFi turned off but acting as the server as BK indicated. I've no issues bar the amp loosing the IP address as I don't use it enough and the session dies and I'm too lazy to reserve a spot for it and changed it to fixed ip.

So that's similar to the situation BK suggested everything can talk to each other.

Ok, so that's exactly what I plan for, apart from running 2 CAT6 cables to some rooms while re-wiring. Presumably each of these will run from the switch to each of the points in the rooms?

bk

BoardsMember wrote: »

Ok, so that's exactly what I plan for, apart from running 2 CAT6 cables to some rooms while re-wiring. Presumably each of these will run from the switch to each of the points in the rooms?

Yup, I've a very similar setup to Stoners above. I've also got two cat5e cables (10 years old now, pre cat6, came pre-wired this way) running to each room, one to each side of the room. The cat5e connect back to a multiport switch which in turn connects to the router. The router doesn't have enough ports itself for all my ethernet connections.

BTW if renovating, you might want to think if you could put some of those cat6 cables in the ceiling or high up on the wall. Ideally wireless AP's should be positioned high up. Though I'd still put some of the cat6's at a lower level too for AV systems, desktop PC's, TV's, etc.

BoardsMember

bk wrote: »

Yup, I've a very similar setup to Stoners above. I've also got two cat5e cables (10 years old now, pre cat6, came pre-wired this way) running to each room, one to each side of the room. The cat5e connect back to a multiport switch which in turn connects to the router. The router doesn't have enough ports itself for all my ethernet connections.

BTW if renovating, you might want to think if you could put some of those cat6 cables in the ceiling or high up on the wall. Ideally wireless AP's should be positioned high up. Though I'd still put some of the cat6's at a lower level too for AV systems, desktop PC's, TV's, etc.

Thanks for the advice. Yes, planning to put one CAT6 in ceiling of the hall for AP, but will prob want to have a PoE switch chained in at the main multiport to power that, not really practical/aesthetically acceptable to have a power point high in the wall or under the ceiling.

Will prob leave another cable blanked in ceiling of the landing, if I go for one of the Uniquiti AP's with the potential for another to be added that should be more than enough.

Any chance someone could recommend a switch for me? Presume it is just a question of number of ports and speed?

bk

BoardsMember wrote: »

Thanks for the advice. Yes, planning to put one CAT6 in ceiling of the hall for AP, but will prob want to have a PoE switch chained in at the main multiport to power that, not really practical/aesthetically acceptable to have a power point high in the wall or under the ceiling.

Yup UAP's come with support for POE in the box, you inject the power at the switch. This is what it looks like:

BoardsMember wrote: »

Will prob leave another cable blanked in ceiling of the landing, if I go for one of the Uniquiti AP's with the potential for another to be added that should be more than enough.

Yup, great idea and good forward planning.

BoardsMember wrote: »

Any chance someone could recommend a switch for me? Presume it is just a question of number of ports and speed?

Any cheap one on Amazon, they are pretty simple devices. Speed should be gigabit switch. 10Gb switches exist, but they are quiet expensive, better to go gigabit ethernet switch for now and upgrade later when the price drops.

Obviously you will need as many ports as you think you will need. You can always buy additional switches in future if you need.

You can go all fancy with managed switches, etc., but massive overkill for home networks IMO.

BoardsMember

Thanks for posting that bk.

Had read through the spec, but hadn't thought about injecting the power at the switch using the injector, was thinking about a 4 port P0E switch, duh!

bk

BoardsMember wrote: »

Thanks for posting that bk.

Had read through the spec, but hadn't thought about injecting the power at the switch using the injector, was thinking about a 4 port P0E switch, duh!

You could of course use a 4 port POE switch too, Ubiquiti make some good ones.

It would be an extra cost, but it would also be a lot neater and no need for lots of extra power plugs/sockets and cabling.

If you have just one UAP, then the injector is probably fine. But if later down the line you end up with two or three UAP's then upgrading to a POE switch would maybe be worth it, rather then have two or three injectors hanging around.

Depends on what you setup looks like, just something worth thinking about. Easily changed in future, the injectors come with the UAP's anyway.

THE ALM

I actually got this switch although at a lower price than currently and it offers a good set of features, still have to get round to installing it yet. You could get a gigabit switch without the poe for a lot less but I was trying to futureproof a bit and allow for adding cameras, AP, etc down the line without having to add power cables in hard to reach areas.

THE ALM

Well I finally got round to setting up the switch. Had couple of Reolink POE cameras ordered Black Friday/Cyber Monday that arrived on Monday so I figured, as I was off Tuesday, I better make a start.

Decided to locate the switch in the Utility Room on top of some wall units meaning it is not in the way but still accessible. As our main electricity consumer unit is also there it is easy to pull cable down beside it which I can box in later.

Have a wholesale electrical shop beside us at work so picked up a box of cat6 cable and have connectors and crimping tools at the ready.

For the cameras I fed the cable up at the soffit through some air vents on a back and front corner of the house. As mentioned, we are in a bungalow so access to pull cable is good, but anybody who has to scramble about in attics on a daily basis has my sympathy as just getting down to the soffit to pull the cable up is bad enough with the dust and fibres from insulation, wear a mask!. Could also feed cable up through some ducting that is housing some coax that we don't currently use in the bedrooms, thankfully easy enough again. Drilled a hole through the ceiling plasterboard and fed cables through.

We currently only have 4g mobile broadband where we are and the router is located in the kitchen so connected another length of cat6 to this, fed it back outside, and back in again along with the cable for one of the cameras.

When making up the cables make sure to get a tester as this will show you that all cables are made up correctly, thankfully I only has to redo one end of cable.

With all that done it was only a matter of fixing the cameras in place, connecting everything up, and turning it on. The only issue I had was finding the network switch. It has an ip of 10.10.xx.xx by default so the laptop/pc has to have an ip in the same range in order to login to the switch to change the ip of the switch to the same range as your home network, normally 109.168.1.xxx.

With everything in the utility room out of the way I have also connected the Hive Hub and a rpi to the switch which is running HASS. HASS is still a work in progress (with the development of it it probably always will be) and currently have hive heating, lights and sensors set up on it, along with device tracking, kodi, chromecast, a denon avr, os3+ sat box, fitbit stats, weather and few other bits and bobs. Plan to pick up a cheap tablet and mount that in the kitchen and control HASS through it. Also following the google home, and echo forums with a view to adding one or the other for voice control.

We are using still using the router for wifi in the house but if I see a a deal on a Ubiquiti access point I will get one and add that to the switch.

Next day off I will do a bit of tidying up of cables etc. but happy with the outcome so far.

BoardsMember

bk wrote: »

Yes, or this one:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/UBIQUITI-NETWORKS-UBI-UAP-AC-PRO-5Ghz-1300Mbps/dp/B016XYQ3WK/ref=pd_sim_147_4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=9MGBQYAGKRT0Z1Z811MS

The difference is this one supports higher bandwidth.

I eventually got around to buying one of these. Very straightforward to set up, I only adjusted the power level to full on both of the aerials. The coverage throughout the house is fine, only one bar at the furthest parts but the internet speed is still good at that.

One thing people might be able to help with though - download speeds are not great when I use this cable:
http://www.cablemonkey.ie/cat6-ethernet-cables/13360-cat6-shielded-ftp-rj45-patch-leads.html
I got 10 a metre length of it to allow me to put the unit in the hall if the results closer to the source of the broadband were not good enough.

When I do a speed test with this cable I get about 90Mps download, when I use a bog standard cable I get 245Mps. It's not an absolute like for like test, the "fancy" cable is in place (fed through units, held in place with cable clips, with a lot of it is coiled up as only using about 4 metres) so the test is on the unit when it is on an external wall. When I use the bog standard cable I take the unit off the wall and use a short cable that is close to the PPOE switch. When I measure I hold the phone close to the unit in both cases.

I wish I had done a test of the speed before with the new cable before I had routed it through drilled holes in units etc. I thought that maybe I had damaged it but the upload speeds in the tests are identical so I dont think that is it, both around the 25Mps.

Any thoughts as to why the new cable compromises download speed so much? Is it expected behaviour for 10m lengths of cat6?

SemperFidelis

The new cable could be subject to interference, is it running close to any electrical cables?

Or it could just be a faulty cable or bad connectors on it. You should be able to get up to 10Gb/s over 100m on CAT6 so yours is under performing by a large margin.

BoardsMember

The spec on the cable would suggest that it should deal well with interference I would have thought. There are no electrical cables that I can see that might cause a problem, the only thing it comes close to is the sub woofer for the home cinema, but that was powered down during testing. It's literally out of the POE switch, out the back of a cabinet and up the wall. I wonder would it interfere with itself (no smutty double-entendre meant!), i.e. the fact that it is coiled up on itself?

I'll have to take a decent length of old cable from the office and route it as the new cable is routed and see how it performs. Will also test with the new & old cable un-routed to see how they perform. Thanks for the response, I just wanted to rule out it being an inherent issue with POE over 10m but that does not seem to be the case. Perhaps I damaged the cable when running it, but would have thought that would affect the upload as well as download speeds.

SemperFidelis

Send and Receive use different pairs within the cable so you may have put a nail through one pair and not the other.

BoardsMember

SemperFidelis wrote: »

Send and Receive use different pairs within the cable so you may have put a nail through one pair and not the other.

No nails went through nothing! Could have twisted while routing, will check later anyhow. Thanks.

BoardsMember

Just to update on this, it looks like the Virgin modem is the issue. It's the modem that is not giving the expected speeds, on wired or wireless. D'Oh!