UniFi Switch from router to Google WiFi (or alternative) and other switches

[blacknewman]

Hi folks,

I have an outdoor camera that is mounted to the roof that is powered using POE. The cable comes into the house and into a UniFi Switch-8 150w in the loft. A cable from the switch also runs down inside our walls out to the router in our hallway. Easy.

I also have 6 Google WiFi pucks to create a mesh network throughout my house. This is plugged directly into the router (the router only has two ethernet ports) and then I run another cable from the first Google Wifi puck to a switch (Netgear Nighthawk S8000) in my office which connects up a PS5, Sky box, computer and then another cable that runs from the switch to another switch (Netgear Nighthawk S8000) in my livingroom to connect similar entertainment devices.

There's a couple of issues with this but I have no idea if it's really a problem.

1. Daisy chaining two switches – is this an issue and could affect performance?
2. As everything past the first Google Wifi puck (which is essentially all WiFi devices and the two Netgear switches) is connected to the same Google WiFi network it leaves the UniFi Switch connected directly to the broadband provider router and thus it's on a separate network. Ideally I'd like everything to run from the same network (Google's).

My thinking would be this...

Connect first Google WiFi puck (which creates the network) directly to the router then connect the UniFi Switch in the loft to the same puck. Then connect the Netgear switch in my office to the UniFi Switch and continue the daisychain. This would mean that everything that is hard wired in is connected to the UniFi Switch which in turn is connected to the first Google Wifi puck. This obviously still means that the Netgear switch (office and livingroom) are daisy chained but I'm still unsure if this is an issue.

Another thought would be to connect the switch in the livingroom to the UniFi Switch in the loft (which would require some work, but doable, probably) and the same with the Netgear switch in my office.

Option A

• ROUTER
  • GOOGLE WIFI PUCK
    • UNIFI SWITCH
      • NETGEAR SWITCH A
        • NETGEAR SWITCH B

Option B

• ROUTER
  • GOOGLE WIFI PUCK
    • UNIFI SWITCH
      • NETGEAR SWITCH A
      • NETGEAR SWITCH B

Option C

Is there a better way to do this?

 

[bremen1874]

Daisy chaining two switches – is this an issue and could affect performance?

Nothing to worry about. It does create a bottleneck but you're very unlikely to ever notice. If you want to use multiple switches there isn't much of an option.

Option A

• ROUTER
  • GOOGLE WIFI PUCK
    • UNIFI SWITCH
      • NETGEAR SWITCH A
        • NETGEAR SWITCH B

Option B

• ROUTER
  • GOOGLE WIFI PUCK
    • UNIFI SWITCH
      • NETGEAR SWITCH A
      • NETGEAR SWITCH B

Option B is slightly better unless there's a lot of traffic between switch A and switch B. Option A will work just fine as well.

 

[blacknewman]

@bremen1874 Thanks so much for this. It turns out the Sky router and box don't play well with managed switches ugh so have gone back to a unmanaged Netgear switch but the options are still the same so this helps me loads. Much appreciated.