Omada for home networking

Networking & Firewalls
1

I watched your comparison review video of Omada vs Unify

I would like to upgrade my current home mesh which consists of 3 Deco M5
The reasons for the upgrade are better wifi coverage of the house (and front lawn and backyard) as well as support for wifi 6. This could easily be accomplished with additional/replacement Deco products.

However, since I have started adding IoT devices, I would like to make sure that they are separated from the rest of the network using VLANs, which seem to be supported only on business networking products such as Omada.

Would you recommend replacing the Deco system with Omada products?
If so, I guess I have to replace the “plain” switches to Omada/managed switches?

I am thinking about placing an access point in (almost) each room. That can be costly, but on a technical note: will that cause interference or will the access points change frequencies adaptively and more importantly change their transmission power?
Another problem with AP in rooms is that I have a LAN port in the room which is currently connected to a PC. I saw that Omada AP have a single LAN connection, so that would imply I have to add a switch to connect both the PC and an AP, which seems too much…

I’d love to hear your thoughts and advice

2

I have never used the Deco M5 Mesh so I don’t know how they compare to the Omada devices, if you want to have WiFi in each room the in wall unit will do both WiFi and still have ports available for the computer to plug in. You can turn down the power on the radios so they won’t cross over as much but I would place them so they are on a shared wall between the room as that would put them too close.

3

I’ve got a EAP245, my experience of it has been excellent from wifi coverage for house. This model has two ethernet ports, so in principle you could daisy chain a second AP to it. However, you might well be able to connect a device to it also.

With those in wall AP’s you need to make sure you buy the right one, the speeds differ on the ethernet connection, if I recall correctly. Read the manual.

I’d double check the hardware version trying to buy the latest, though good luck with that.

It sounds like you have wired up your house with ethernet cable, but didn’t double up, now might be the time to consider it.

You can buy any managed switch, I use Netgear, they do the job, though you’ll need a PoE one. More cost but fewer cables everywhere, at least in the UK that AP came with an injector, though I’d recommend getting a poe switch anyway.

Because it’s easier to place these you might get better coverage than you think, so perhaps get one to begin with.

If you only have one AP, you can manage it directly, However, if you get 2 or more APs you’ll need to set up the controller if you want the mesh feature (I only have one AP). You can run it in a vm or buy the hardware controller.

So if you want to add vlans, then you need a vlan aware router.

There is of course a simpler solution, I’d bet those Deco’s have a guest network, you can just as easily use that for IoT.

Think you need to do a bit of homework !!

4

Thanks for the replies

  1. what do you mean by “double up” ethernet cable wiring?
  2. the requirement for a vlan aware router - if I understand correctly, choosing Omada would require to have next to the main modem:
  • router
  • optional switch (connecting the rest of the house, dependent on the number of ports of the router)
  • Omada h/w controller (OC300?)
    What are the recommended router, switch
  1. regarding using the Deco’s guest network as the IoT network, it is indeed feasible. However, I want fine grained access - allowing some IoT internet access, and others only access to my home assistant server. It would be difficult to do all that with the limited options of the guest network
  2. As for the in wall omada unit with two ethernet ports - I believe they are “older”, technology wise, and do not support wifi-6
5

Run two cables instead of one, if one fails then you don’t have to faff around. School boy error :wink:

Don’t know of any consumer routers which support vlans (previously used Asus, at least the ones I had didn’t). I like Protecli

Though I have to admit I have a cheaper version

You can easily load pfSense on to it, though it requires some application of effort to get it up and running in the way you might want.
Have several of these dotted around my house, silent and PoE, they are connected to a non-poe 48 Port managed Netgear switch

As these are in your house, you need to check if the fan is loud (don’t ask me how), if they have none that might be more suitable.

Yeah pfSense will give you fine grained control over what networks / devices can do.

Personally I’m suspect on wifi and any claims about speed. Sure go for 6, no idea if you get anywhere close to what is advertised. Those new AP are wifi 6, maybe that is faster than 1GB, not sure, so do you now need 10GB networking :slight_smile:
Forget about future proofing, I’ve been using 1GB networking for 20 years !! You can cost it all out but I’d say you get more bang for the bucks by ignoring wifi 6 and using kit for the previous standard.

If you wifi is crappy now I suspect placing APs optimally will be the biggest improvement you can make. If it’s ok now, and you want faster well I suppose you will have to pony up the cash.

6

This might be handy
https://www.tp-link.com/uk/business-networking/omada-sdn-access-point/eap615-wall/
but still think placing the AP on the ceiling, centrally in the house is the optimal solution, rather than one of these in each room.

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