Network setup help

Hey folks, I have a couple things I would like some advice on. Currently for my home network setup I have my ISP’s modem/router combo set to bridge port 1, and then some google wifi and points connected to that.

My goal is to get rid of the google home wifi and if possible my ISP’s modem/router combo (I don’t really need to replace my ISP if it makes it way more complicated) with something more open and flexible.

I have a couple dell optiplex micros I can use as a pihole/dns/whatever is needed, and I was thinking of picking up a couple of these for my WAP’s and then running the omada docker container to control them.

Would this be enough or would I also need something like openwrt running on another machine as well? If that’s the case I could also pick up this and install it into one of my dell machines so I can run some kind of router software.

TLDR- what would you buy in my situation given you only want to spend about $500 cad max on all the hardware to setup a network in your home lab?

xyguy , (edited )

I don't have a ton of faith in tplink to continue to support omada over the long term. They've also been somewhat slow to fix security problems in the past. For the same price as the omada ap you can get unifi u6 lites.

You can still run your own controller and i can vouch thaf a couple of them can cover an entire moderately sized house. I run 2 at home with pfsense on an ewaste tier dell optiplex and have for years without trouble.

I've never messed with opnsense but I assume it works just as well.

Also what type of connection are you getting from your ISP? If its a fiber connection you may be able to buy an SFP network card and replace the modem altogether.

mrtoast72 OP ,
@mrtoast72@lemmy.world avatar

Ah I was hoping to stay away from ubiquiti but it seems more and more that I should go with them for long term support. I’m hoping to purchase things that will be decent for the next 5-10 years, so things like wifi 6e and 4x4 mu-memo is what steered me away from them in the first place because the cost of entry is really high.

My ISP provides gigabit fiber, so I’ll look into maybe getting an SFP network card.

I googled open source router, and open sense was the first thing that came up, but I probably be going with pfsense anyways.

Thanks for all the info!

JustEnoughDucks ,
@JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl avatar

But to be fair, even 2 ASUS WiFi 6E on their zenwifi like for example are like >300€. A Cloud gateway ultra + U7 pro + PoE injector is around that too. For me the router/AP entrance is in a place that barely gives a signal so it makes so sense to have an access point there.

So I would get more or less the same signal with 1 access point + a wired router than 2 access points.

Depends on your situation of course.

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