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?

  • MrToast72🍞OP
    1•6 months ago

    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
      1•6 months ago

      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.

      • MrToast72🍞OP
        1•6 months ago

        My issues hasn’t really been coverage with my Google wifi setup, it’s more that they can’t handle many wifi clients talking at the same time. That and I can’t set settings I would like, example being which channel they’re on so they don’t conflict with things like my zigbee network.

        So I think ubiquiti might just be the way to go. I think I might just get a cloud key and a couple AP’s and call it a day.