I need to upgrade my whole home network, and have plans of building a home in the next couple of years, so this would be a great opportunity to work on now. And maybe help others who come across this thread
I have been reading and watching a lot of YouTube, and am being drawn to a standardization of Ubiquiti products. I came across this company many years ago when I was working with their Bullet and Air products for point to point communications, and other money/time wasting projects that I have been known to chase.
So think of this as a bit of a blank canvas, but like many of you I have the Smart TV, Laptops, Tablets, Phones along with the HA to start with, but need a lot of room to expand into.
So my basic thought is as follows: Managed Switch, along with AP (Access Point) to start.
Then build a Topology of isolating various devices from each other via VLANS, and firewall rules.
Is there a question in here somewhere? Go for the Unifi gear you know you want it and currently it's one of the best priced fully managed offerings available. Go for the full shebang with POE switches and bask in the enjoyment of power cycling equipment remotely when needed.
I use UniFi equipment and I have a separate vlan for all IoT devices. A pfsense FW manages access to the internet (cameras get none) and also between the different vlans.
That I would love to do, but even I know not to spend like the government...
You are right there was not a direct question, but now I have one. How have you setup a managed switch using VLAN's and what did you put in each of them?
Another question I have a lot of security Cameras which are all hard wired PoE, maybe a separate cheaper PoE injector would be cheaper than a PoE switch, thoughts?
Oh get out the Credit Card and spend spend spend.. just like the Gov... on credit because they have no money either
I don't do a lot of VLAN segmentation like some people do. I also don't put questionable/unknown devices on my network. I have isolated equipment (cheap AP, switch etc) for testing questionable items. I don't allow "new" or unknown devices to connect to my Wifi and I use a good password.
Pfsense is a good firewall. I do however use a USG currently.
POE injector gets around the need for a switch but then you don't have management capabilities unless you also put that injector on a smart switch
Ubiquiti Networks Unifi 802.11ac Dual-Radio PRO Access Point
Ubiquiti US-24 Unifi Switch
Very standard list that I have seen around the internet. Then have either a smaller PoE switch for the security cameras, sectioned onto their own VLAN.
I am guessing that this would make a great maybe over kill network for any home, especially in the 2000sqft range
No issues beyond can't remote control or monitoring, more power cables to manage take up space, basically more crap to mount or have hanging off the switch and run cables to and through.
I agree, not the nicest looking setup with cables going in and out of PoE injector, plus I sometimes wonder if it is not more of something to go wrong. At my home I also have a HAM station, and so electrical noise around here can get interesting. I understand twisted pair of the Cat5 or 6 and thr canceling properties, but could still cause one to chase their tail.
I do not really need remote service, so most like a Virtual Server, but truthfully, that is something I need to look into. Was just planning on using the web interface.
For vlans, I have a work network which my work stuff goes on, another for personal computers/alexas/firetv/etc, one for security equipment like my alarm system and cams (although cams are on the same network now as my cloud key because I haven’t found a way to put them on separate networks, and one for polycom voip phones and the phone system. I also have another zone for VPN termination, but that's not really a VLAN.
A lot of the Hubitat plugins assume the things you want to talk to are on the same subnet as the HE, so the only do discovery on that subnet and you cannot specify the IP of a device or a different subnet to scan.
the Nano HD supports AC wave 2 is the newest. better mimo more spatial streams.
The Pro has two 3x3 radios, one on each freq.
The NanoHD is 2x2 on 2.4 and 4x4 on 5Ghz - with many devices now including a good 5GHz radio I had no issues with giving up a spatial stream in the 2.4
Mostly because it was the newest model and my Pro had to be sent in for repair so I bought the nanoHD.
Quick look on Amazon between the two AP's was about $23, I will pencil that into my design as an alternative device.
Also you thought that one AP would not cover 2000sqft, I will also mark that down as well as a design consideration to look into.
In the new home construction, I plan on running Cat 6 to every room, actually where ever there is a socket, over kill maybe, but I have learnt over the years it tends to be cheaper. Also in past homes I have put in 2 inch plastic tubing form the crawlspace to the attic, just incase I needed to run cable, along with strings to be able to pull wires.
