Local network optimization

Presentations
1

Hello everyone

I currently have a Bouygues 4G box Huawei B528s-23a.
The beast only has one Ethernet port, used for the Hue gateway (it cannot connect otherwise…) and the rest is managed via Wi-Fi.

I regularly lose the Gladys alias (gladys.local) and I also have some losses of local addresses. They come back but as a result, I often have display losses of the Gladys admin interface, not finding the page…

I have all my gear connected via Wi-Fi, Gladys as well:

  • the Raspberry Pi
  • 2 Xiaomi gateways
  • 2 laptops
  • 2 phones
  • 1 tablet
  • 3 connected speakers
  • 1 PS4
  • 1 stove (yes yes)
  • and others occasionally

I suspect the beast is having trouble with all that.
I need to review this.

@AdrienDesola advised me:

Very good, this will strengthen my Wi-Fi network and expand it (all the better), I have a house under renovation of about 100 m2 with outbuildings attached to the house and 70 cm thick stone walls…
I would also like to increase my Ethernet connectivity since the Hue bridge consumes one, I would like to be able to have it as an option.

Any ideas, friends?
Is this a good solution? What should I add for my Ethernet?

2

Take a router, not an AP.

What’s the budget?

3

I feel like saying that to be quiet, it’s priceless.

Let’s say I want something with a good price/quality ratio, around 100 euros if it’s playable.

AP?

4

Access Point :wink: sorry

5

And so, a router to recommend?

6

Should I replace my current box with a 4G router, or add a router behind my box?

7

That has nothing to do with it, your box for your access and behind you put a router.

You take a MIMO 2.4/5 GHz router with a few gigabit ports on the back and that will do the trick. There are many choices.

8

+1

Don’t bother, you just need extra Ethernet ports to extend your wired capacity, see if you also want to extend the Wi-Fi, otherwise a Ethernet switch is enough.

After that, you need to see if you can connect your pi, your PS4, your xiaomi gateways for example on RJ45…

9

No, I want to stay wireless (maybe not for the Pi and the PS4) and boost my Wi-Fi network.

10

Well… Hello to the WiFi bandwidth drops you must have when everyone gets on at the same time…

Since I see that you are renovating, I can only STRONGLY advise you to run X Ethernet cables from your box to each of the outbuildings.

I’ll explain why I came to this conclusion:

Like you, I prioritize WiFi as much as possible.
When I renovated my house, I finally thought that wired connections sometimes have their advantages. Convinced that I would never use them and that since I was renovating, I might as well hide in the walls what would never be used, I still pulled a few Ethernet cables here and there, so 1 going into the house extension (60cm walls)

Well I can affirm: HOW RIGHT I WAS TO DO SO!!!
Indeed, despite a 100% signal, the quality of the WiFi network behind the repeater located in the extension was not great (because the original WiFi was weak) and like you, I had problems with disappearing IPs.

Without conviction, and to test if it would make a difference, I finally plugged the repeater into the Ethernet cable going to the box and configured it as an access point, Well I can tell you that the difference in terms of reliability and network quality is huge!

By the way, if I were you, in addition to the repeater, I would still put a 5-port switch behind my box to connect the repeater(s), the RPi/Gladys and your Hue gateway.
It’s not the price that it costs (you can find them for €10 on the internet, ok they don’t go up to Gbit, but you don’t need it for what you are going to connect to it…) and it will avoid inconveniences.

Personally, after 2 years of daily use, I have come to the following conclusion: WiFi is very useful for everyday use, but for the 2 bases of my home automation (Gladys and IPX), wired is still MUCH more reliable.

11

My network is complete.
I only have an Ethernet from my local box to my TV for everything related to PS4 (and TV if I ever have a TV box).

When I renovated, I wasn’t at all into home automation, so it never crossed my mind for a second…

12

Hi @Hamtaro,

At my place, I use a TPLink as a switch and it’s very very good :slight_smile:

https://www.tp-link.com/fr/products/details/cat-39_TL-SG3210.html

I mostly use wired connections for the raspberry pi / server. I have a home automation Wi-Fi and a Wi-Fi for phone / tablet.

Wi-Fi is very convenient, but I find that what runs in « production » if we can say it like that, well, what needs to be accessible 24/7 should be wired :stuck_out_tongue:

The switch manages SNMP, so you can retrieve statistics from it with a small zabbix / grafana for example :roll_eyes: :smiley:

Regarding the Gladys.local alias, try setting up a small DNS at home locally, on a raspberry pi for example :stuck_out_tongue: