wifi network advice

[slinxy]

Hi Guys

I think I'm over the limit that my standard sky sr101 hub can support, I know often all my devices ain't talking to the hub all at the same time but I would like to separate items such as my video cam, heater and plugs away from my computers, I think my IoT will get busier as time goes by.

I'm not sure if I should just get a better asdl modem/router on that supports vlans and mulitple ssid wifis and if so; which one or just get another sr101 hub from somewhere and then bridge them together to create two actual networks...

Anyone else had this issue? and done a solution?

Thanks for the advice...

 

[BigT]

I can't comment on all in one solutions but if you do as you describe with two SR101s you'll end up I guess in a situation where you connect your IoT to the SSID of the sr101 connected to your phone line. You'll also connect your second sr101 to the first sr101 and connect your computers to that SSID (assuming the sr101 has a WAN port which I don't know if it has). That will stop your IoT devices talking to your computers but it will work the other way around. The problem will be your computers will be double NATd which may or may not be a problem depending on your usage. In this scenario you don't need to use an sr101 as your second router, you could use any device sold as a "cable router" i.e. no modem in it.

I do what you're looking to achieve but the way I do it is that I have Ubiquiti Access Points with two different SSIDs on the same APs (they support up to four), one for IoT and one for computers (I actually do more than that with a guest network as well but its not relevant to this). The IoT SSID which my IoT devices connect to is tagged as a VLAN. My router, a pfSense machine, then has a different DHCP server for the VLAN and the computer traffic and firewall rules to keep them appropriately separated.

I'm guessing there is an all-in-one that could do all the functionality of my Ubiquiti + pfSense + OR modem solution but I don't personally have experience. I'm guessing a device with custom firmware or a Mikrotik can, so hopefully someone will be along that can offer real world experience. It'd certainly be a lot cheaper than a pfSense + Ubiquiti solution (probably £300 for a one AP and router setup) but avoid the inelegant solution of two routers together with the double NAT issue. You'd also need to consider the non-standard way Sky does authentication which again I'm not familiar with but know can be an issue from what I've read.

 

[slinxy]

Thanks... I'm trying to keep the number of items down as I've already have enough stuff that's already powered on all the time.
I think the most simple solution would be to get a dual channel asdal modem/router and have all my IoT on the 2.4 and my computer items on the 5 channel. I seen some multiple ssid channel wifi, but they seem to have set names for functions such as guest or parental control.