Routers & Other Networking Stuff

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Muligan

Muligan

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I purchased the Orbi mesh system about a year ago and have really enjoyed it but my parents are not quite looking to spend the money I did but when you look at the mid range systems, it’s about 50-50 on the reviews..

Dad still plays MMOs and Mom just a casual browser but the have a rather long house. The TP-links seems to be affordable and decent but the back haul issue seems to keep coming up in what I’ve read. Naturally Dad’s gaming machine is hardwired but he has two boxes on laptops he does use on wireless and they have Roku, etc. all over the house using wireless.

Would like to pick them up something for Christmas but anyone have a recommendation for $250 or less??
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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Kiki said:
FYI guys this is $100 off today. Finally picked one up after delaying it so long.

store.amplifi.com

AmpliFi Alien Router

Experience out-of-this-world WiFi range and performance with the world's only 16-stream WiFi router. Features: WiFi 6 16 spatial streams 280 m² (3,000 ft²) coverage 120+ connected devices (4) GbE LAN and (1) GbE WAN port 4.7" LCM touchscreen Learn more
store.amplifi.com store.amplifi.com
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Seananigans Seananigans - Buy this - install - done. :)
 
Utnayan

Utnayan

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Awesome. Super easy to set up. You do it all on your phone via an app connected to the router via Bluetooth. Also if you haven’t make sure you have a 1gb capable network cable attached from your cable modem / dsl router to the alien.

Then, make all your SSID’s hilarious. Because neighbors will see them pop up. I have a neighbor that’s a huge packer fan and I change mine every once in a while. Soon, “Rodgers has herpes”.
 
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Foler

The_Black_Log Foler

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Mist said:
UDM Pros still not in stock. Fucking Biden.
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Put yourself on B&H photo and ubiquiti notify list. Only took maybe a week for me to get one with in stock notification. I’ve seen them come in stock since.

Yes it’s fucking awesome.
 
Phazael

Phazael

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Mist said:
Anyone know a 5 port switch with no activity lights or with activity lights you can disable administratively?
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Unifi lets you disable lights on switches and wireless APs. You can even change colors on the APs if you want. Never saw the use, but I guess if there is a need for it, they have that base covered. I think there might be some way to disable the link lights in older Cisco switches by modifying them with an SSH session, but I can't remember the specifics.
 
Mist

Mist

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Hmm, my unifi 5-port switch does not have any option to disable the activity LEDs, I'll check again.
 
Phazael

Phazael

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Burns said:
If you want to go Unifi, you can start in the $120 to $250 range and step it up as needed, you can buy 1 lite disk (access point) for $99 or 1 long range disk (access point) for $179, and place it at the opposite side of the house from the router. See if that gets enough coverage. The more walls there are, the less distance the signal will travel, so the best places to install them are on the ceilings in hallways, or in big open rooms (that don't often have shut doors). If you use the POE feature (highly recommended), you will also need to buy a powered switch or injector (described in brief, below).

EDIT2: For a full Unifi setup, you need a bunch of stuff, like a controller to house the software, called a cloud key, a replacement router, a switch, etc., but (according to the internet) you can just add an access point for $100 and a PoE injector for ~$10 to get started. Once the access point is on your network, you can use the Unifi app to set it up.

How that set up would work look: Outside Internet connection -> (Cat6 (or Coax, depending on service)) into router -> (Cat6) into powered switch -> (Cat6: long run) into access point (Unifi disk) -> (wireless) into to TV

My unqualified and amateur opinion: Two of the $99 lite disks in halls close to the opposite corners of your house (from your router) should cover everything, but 1 might do it. If you buy just one first, you can kind of test it out, by running a long Cat 6 on the floor, to wherever you think it may work, and hang the disk with a small nail (or on one of those double sided tape hangers) on the wall closest to the celling mount (if you are putting it on the celling). Then walk around with a laptop/tablet/phone and measure strength. TVs usually have cheaper receivers than phones/tablets, so defiantly check them too.

There are some tools out there, that if you upload your floor plan, they will inaccurately estimate coverage, but I have never used one, so don't know much about it.

Reference:
POE is power over ethernet: It allows you to use a powered switch to send the power as well as the internet connection through the Cat6 line and not needs a separate wire and outlet to power the device. EDIT: You can inject power into the Cat6 run using a PoE Injector for $6 to $20.

PiHole is an add blocker for your whole network, but it is easy to look up, so I assume you already googled it.
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I have done the full Unifi setup (wrote it off as work expense, bought it with Trump bucks) and it was worth it for me. But our home has full automation and wife and I are in perm Work at Home situation, so I had cause to do it. I planned out and balanced my APs and the whole house is wired on Cat6, with most of the switches and APs running off of PoE. Had some issues with neighbors, because their shit was fucking with my automation and they would not agree to limiting each WAN in the cul du sac to certain channel ranges, but I won that fight by turning all my APs up full blast on all channels for a couple weeks LOL. Stuff works great, but a little networking know-how goes a long way to getting the most out of it (setting up seperate VLANs for different tasks, tuning your AP broadcasts, prioritizing bandwidth ect) so its not for everyone.

If you want something simpler but good, Luxul is decent for consumer Wifi system.
 
Phazael

Phazael

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Mist said:
Hmm, my unifi 5-port switch does not have any option to disable the activity LEDs, I'll check again.
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What generation do you have and is your firmware fully up to date? I might have done that with SSH based editing as well (had one in the bedroom I did not want blinking all fucking night). Just be careful because its really fucking easy to brick their switches if you goof.
 
Mist

Mist

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Phazael said:
What generation do you have and is your firmware fully up to date? I might have done that with SSH based editing as well (had one in the bedroom I did not want blinking all fucking night). Just be careful because its really fucking easy to brick their switches if you goof.
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Pfft, I can handle it, I brick voip gateways for a living.
 
Phazael

Phazael

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Mist said:
Pfft, I can handle it, I brick voip gateways for a living.
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Fair enough, Networking is not really my top IT skill so I tend to be paranoid and careful about it. Going through my notes, I think I got some homebrew file I dumped on the switch with SSH to kill the lights. So a little googlefu would probably find you the same (updated) modification. Its been a while since I have dug into the nuts and bolts of my home network (unifi has been that rock fucking solid for me) but I know there is a shitload of cool tweaks you can do by uploading files to their devices that way. And yeah, looking at my admin console, the light controls are only present for the APs and not the switches.
 
Mist

Mist

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Phazael said:
Fair enough, Networking is not really my top IT skill so I tend to be paranoid and careful about it. Going through my notes, I think I got some homebrew file I dumped on the switch with SSH to kill the lights. So a little googlefu would probably find you the same (updated) modification. Its been a while since I have dug into the nuts and bolts of my home network (unifi has been that rock fucking solid for me) but I know there is a shitload of cool tweaks you can do by uploading files to their devices that way. And yeah, looking at my admin console, the light controls are only present for the APs and not the switches.
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It's a USW-Flex-Mini. Does not appear to support SSH connections, and from the controller I can only turn off the status LED, nothing for the ports.
 
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Phazael

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Semi related, the shit you can do with their actual full blown gateway is pretty damn good. I am full on remote Sysad/senior service desk where I work and SA has Spectrum for internet which is less than totally reliable. So I get myself a nice cellular modem and tie it to my Verizon unlimited data account and config the gateway and I pretty much have on demand instant failover to cell modem whenever Spectrum fucks me over during work. Best bit of dick waving I got to do at my job was when our whole fucking town had a spectrum outage recently (and our SA HQ went down to this shit too) and I was 100 percent up with zero interruptions thanks to a little pre-planning and configuring a cellular modem in my closet. Wife laughed at me for buying that thing, but its made us look really good to employers at least a half a dozen times this year alone.
 
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Phazael

Phazael

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Mist said:
It's a USW-Flex-Mini. Does not appear to support SSH connections, and from the controller I can only turn off the status LED, nothing for the ports.
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Yeah mine are all Lite 5s and 8s. Flex did not exist when I built out my home network, iirc. I have made good bling setting up about five small businesses with Unifi built around Lites and the cloudkey plus gateway combo (the combined device was not available when I did most of these) around town, including my kraut club. A bit of a bear to set up, but once its up and running its stupidly easy to maintain.
 
Lanx

Lanx

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Phazael said:
Had some issues with neighbors, because their shit was fucking with my automation and they would not agree to limiting each WAN in the cul du sac to certain channel ranges, but I won that fight by turning all my APs up full blast on all channels for a couple weeks LOL
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can you in theory be so spiteful to your neighbors that you buy black friday routers and have them on the same channel to lower their signal strength?
 
Foler

The_Black_Log Foler

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Mist Mist I literally just saw bh photo sent me a notification for UDM pro in stock around 3pm today. Seems they get a drop once a week.
 
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Foler

The_Black_Log Foler

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Phazael said:
Yeah mine are all Lite 5s and 8s. Flex did not exist when I built out my home network, iirc. I have made good bling setting up about five small businesses with Unifi built around Lites and the cloudkey plus gateway combo (the combined device was not available when I did most of these) around town, including my kraut club. A bit of a bear to set up, but once its up and running its stupidly easy to maintain.
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You guys gotta step up your switch game. Running a switch pro 24 Poe and it’s tits. Even has a lil touchscreen lcd!
 
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