Smart home devices not working

Exlow

My A7 is on its last leg and I'd like to save a buck and use an ASUS wifi card I've got insted of buying a new router. Its becoming more clear to me that using PfSense for this kind of application is a bad idea. I'm running some LED strips, 20-30 Lights and a theromstat right now on a 2.4G WiFi band. None of it works on PfSense. So... Running these devices on PfSense isn't going to work?

johnpoz

@exlow said in Smart home devices not working:

ASUS wifi card I've got insted of buying a new router.

Yeah so you understand freebsd is very limited in wireless, can't even do AC, N is best you can do.. Is your wifi card even able to be an AP? Some are not - and freebsd compatibility with wifi cards also parse..

I for sure would save yourself a lot of grief.. And get an actual AP, or some cheap AC router and just use it as an AP..

As to your A7 as you last leg, you mean its in front of pfsense to get to the internet - so double nat as well. And any wifi connected to the AP would be on pfsense wan, and not be able to see anything behind pfsense, etc.

No freebsd, and therefore pfsense is not a good choice for doing wifi on..

The normal setup would be to use pfsense as your edge router, and then take your old wifi router and just use it as an AP for wifi behind pfsense.

JKnott

@exlow said in Smart home devices not working:

My A7 is on its last leg and I'd like to save a buck and use an ASUS wifi card I've got insted of buying a new router.

Why not get a proper access point? Most support VLANs and multiple SSIDs. Many can use PoE, so you don't have to worry about having AC power handy. I use a Ubiquiti Unifi AC-Lite, but there are others to choose from. You can also use more than one, if you have to cover a large area.

johnpoz

@jknott exactly... While I understand wanting to save a buck or 2.. When it comes to wifi - I want it to work, and I want it to be stable.. Well worth a few bucks vs running some card you have laying around in an OS that is known to not do wifi very good.

Also so your pfsense box is going to be in the optimal location for coverage for you whole house? What are the odds of that?

Just get a real AP that you can proper mount where it makes sense, or easy to add more for better coverage. Can do vlans, etc. etc.

You have made the choice to upgrade to a firewall that gives you all these bells and whistles and can pretty much do everything you could ever want. Just to skimp out on your wifi coverage.. Anyone home that has iot, etc. prob has a lot of wifi devices.. I have like 30 at any given time wifi devices connected.. I want them to work, I want them to have good signal, I want them to have good speed.

Well worth the few bucks to use real AP if you ask me.

JKnott

@johnpoz said in Smart home devices not working:

Also so your pfsense box is going to be in the optimal location for coverage for you whole house?

Mine's in my laundry room, which is close to the middle of my condo.

My cat's checking it out.

rcoleman-netgate

@jknott are there any users vertically above the AP? Mounted on the sheetmetal will do nothing helpful for the signal quality.

johnpoz

@jknott hehe yeah with @rcoleman-netgate here - that does not seem to be an "optimal" mounting ;) hehehe

rcoleman-netgate

@johnpoz ... his cat is not checking it out, it's very obviously judging @JKnott's chosen location.

JKnott

@rcoleman-netgate

No, my condo is on a single floor. Above is a neighbour and below is the parking garage. Either way, no users. I put it on the bottom side of the duct, so that ducts elsewhere wouldn't block the signal. As it is, the signal more than covers my unit and is even usable well outside.

rcoleman-netgate

@jknott Yes but it will also refract your signal and flip and invert it which will cause interference.

JKnott

@rcoleman-netgate

I believe you mean reflect. Refract is when a signal is bent around a corner. However, I discussed this in the Ubiquiti forum and no one had any objections. Also, that AP comes with a metal doubler plate for use with those drop ceiling tiles, so whoever designed the AP doesn't have an issue with metal there. I also looked at the radiation charts and the signal is mostly horizontal with little vertically.

Incidentally, MIMO, which access points utilize, makes use of the multiple paths that reflections cause.

Exlow

@johnpoz I've left out a few details to save some time, My home is 3 stories(Basement, ground and upstairs) The house is over 3,000 sqaure feet and my problem is that its a long house(And a part of the house is brick). I've got 4 routers running as AP's to cover the entire house.

Now, the majority of the smart devices are located on one side of the house. The 5th router(My PfSense Box) runs the side of the house with all the smart devices I am referring to. I decided to use a WiFi Card in the PfSense box insted of a proper AP because I don't use much WiFi on that side of the house; Everything has its own Cat6 cable.

I will go ahead and get a AP to run the smart home devices. Honestly you're right, spending the money is easier and more stable than lighting my server rack on fire trying to get something to work that won't work.

rcoleman-netgate

@exlow said in Smart home devices not working:

I've got 4 routers running as AP's to cover the entire house.

Sounds like a nightmare.

So you have many different routing networks that could be causing your trouble? Turn them into APs if you can, replace them if you cannot, reflash them with AFW if possible. All those routes and NATs and UPnP can cause headaches like what you are describing.

Exlow

@johnpoz I should do that. When I installed PfSense I had already been running a mix of routers across my home conneted to one router... the poor Archer A7 was infront of all the other Routers. I never changed them out for something else because well... I've been so busy I've not had time to notice the mess of routers keeping the WiFi running.

JKnott

@exlow said in Smart home devices not working:

The house is over 3,000 sqaure feet and my problem is that its a long house(And a part of the house is brick). I've got 4 routers running as AP's to cover the entire house.

You definitely want proper access points. They often also support fast roaming.

As I mentioned, I have a Unifi access point. They have software for managing the access points and it's easy to configure one and have the configuration distributed to all APs. Also, Unifi APs are sold individually or in 5 packs. With the 5 packs it's assumed you'll be using a PoE switch, but the single unit comes with a PoE injector.

Exlow

@rcoleman-netgate I've not heard of AFW could you elaborate? You make a good point, I've been running into tons of similar issues. I would like to get some AP's but I don't have the time to set them up right now. I'm planning on doing some upgrades when MetroNet comes online in my area I'll buy some AP's then. We've only got Spectrum right now and I'm not really getting the speeds I pay for among other issues I've got with them.

rcoleman-netgate

@exlow AFW = alternate firmware. There are a number of different firmwares that could be installed on some devices.
https://search.brave.com/search?q=alternate+firmware+wireless

Exlow

@jknott I had a 48 port POE Cisco switch I used when I was mining Crypto but a year ago it randomly caught on fire one day... No clue what exactly happened there but now I'm stuck with a 24 port Netgear switch that isn't POE. I'll get another POE switch when I get some AP's I'm glad you told me about the 5 pack, I'll need atleast 5.

JKnott

@exlow

Yeah, crypto mining takes a lot of power.

johnpoz

@rcoleman-netgate said in Smart home devices not working:

I've got 4 routers running as AP's to cover the entire house.

Your actually using them as AP only.. They support that mode, or you just connecting them to your network via lan port on the device and turning off their dhcp?

If they were all AP that should work ok, but if they are doing nat - yeah that could be very problematic with stuff that should be able to talk to each other not being able too.

My place is less than half your 3000, all 1 floor and I have 3 APs ;) heheh - But then again I don't have any devices that don't have an outstanding signal. And the one in my kitchen is near the patio door so also have great coverage out on my patio, etc.

Multiple floors make it trickier to get great coverage and properly place AP in the ceilings for sure.. Especially if your walls are brick or other issues with walls, etc. I would prob turn off 2.4 if wasn't for these stupid IoT devices that don't support 5ghz.

Guess depends on your priorities - one of mine is not having to ever worry about wifi coverage anywhere in the house. And I don't want stuff at the edge of coverage being flacky our causing problems with the other devices on that same AP.. I have been a fan of the Unifi APs - they support vlans, and quite a few other bells and whistles for wifi. Plus you can run the controller on pretty much anything - I have it running on a vm on my nas. And now I can see exactly what is connected to what AP, their signal, what PHY they are connected at, how much data any specific client is moving.. Wish they would add if device is using wpa2 or wpa3.. Stupid iot devices and no support for wpa3 ;) or enterprise.

The unifi have some very reasonable priced models - you can get newest lite model for like $99 I think.. They can even do wireless uplink, etc. If you need too, but I have all mine wired.. I don't get less than 400mbps on any device that supports that anywhere in the house, etc.