Best Wi-Fi Strategy for Home Automation

[fcwilt]

I use unmanaged switches that are known to pass STP packets OK so there is nothing to configure.

 
But STP relies on priority values that determine the "path" (if you will) for data.
 
For instance if you have a wireless path in parallel to a wired path wrong priority values can send data across the wireless path, ignoring the wired path.
 
Check the Sonos Forum for problems involving STP that can occur. I ran into these a few years back and have no idea if Sonos has corrected the problems.
 
Frederick

 

[batwater]

I have a similar size house and 3 floors but I now have 3. Do I need 3? Yes and no. If I was only worried about solid WiFi coverage, 1 of the UniFi AC Pros would be fine. But I also want strong 5 GHz coverage (faster but shorter range) and I’m also trying to cover a little of the front, side, and back yards. So I have an Inwall AC Pro on the middle floor back and a pair of AC Pros in the front left and right of the upper floor. To say I have full coverage and extremely fast speeds is an understatement. Just thought I’d share as it is a solid design worth emulating with the caveat that every situation is slightly different.

 
Great feedback, I'm now considering what you have described.  I just upgraded last night my internet to 300/20 on Spectrum and immediately saw speed difference on phone depending on where I was in the house.  Still solid 40mb at edges but nowhere near the 300 near the AP.

 

[upstatemike]

But STP relies on priority values that determine the "path" (if you will) for data.
 
For instance if you have a wireless path in parallel to a wired path wrong priority values can send data across the wireless path, ignoring the wired path.
 
Check the Sonos Forum for problems involving STP that can occur. I ran into these a few years back and have no idea if Sonos has corrected the problems.
 
Frederick

 
I hear what you are saying but since I'm not using managed switches there is nothing I can control... it is all handled by Sonos and as far as I know they don't expose any STP settings for users to play with. Sonos forums just say make sure there is only one Sonos device connected to ethernet but that is not practical in my environment due to wireless interference plus gaps too big for Sonosnet to cross. In any case I have STP pretty well under control at this point. My bigger issue is when UPNP goes crazy. I can watch the log on Homeseer as a hand full of players start throwing UPNP errors every couple of seconds. When that happens the entire Sonos environment stops working although other IP traffic is not affected. If I run around and unplug the Sonos players called out in the log the problem usually jumps to some other Sonos players until eventually i get enough Sonos players unplugged for it to stop. When I plug the players back in the problem usually does not come back until I do something to trigger it again. Triggers are usually editing something from the PC app or playing to a large group of players for an extended period of time. All IP devices on my network have reserved IP addresses and the errors only refer to UPNP specifically.
 
I think the ultimate resolution is going to come from Russound or HTI.

 

[pete_c]

All said this is why I do try not use the WAN or LAN for any automation dependencies.
 
An RPi with direct connect Z-Wave, UPB, X10 or Zigbee and sertonet to the mothership does work but the dependency is on the network.  But too if there is no electricity in your home then your lights will not go on unless you run a back up generator or have a large UPS / Generator set up.
 
10 RPi's streaming audio works but they will never be in sync.  Here stream audio to touch clients if their is no Russound speakers in the room.  I did this originally for my garage audio until I installed speakers and controller in the Garage for Russound.
 
Relating to any type of control of hardware for automation best has always been a direct wired connection - early on this was a serial connection. 
 
I more transport pieces you have between the hardware and the controlling device the less resilient it is.
 
Automation source or controller ==> firmware or software controlling
 
Automation source or controller or audio source ==> network ==> firmware or software
The network can be an issue even Gb wired and is willy nilly WLAN wise no matter what is assumed.
 
As mentioned above the ultimate resolution for audio is a wired zoned audio system. 
 
Today utilize multiple resources for Russound audio including streaming and remote control of said streaming boxes.  For example utilize Kodi and Squeeze audio only streaming players as two sources or multiple of for multiple sources. 
The Russound system here connects to my OmniPro2.  Control is via Russound KPLs and Omnitouch 5.7 and Omnitouch 5.7e's.  I have a mini serial server running on the serial port of the Russound such that I have two sources of control today so I can integrate HSTouch, Media server stuff and Russound stuff on one Homeseer touchscreen. 
 
Relating to the OP...
 
Best Wi-Fi Strategy for Home Automation?
 
None that I know of or played with since the beginning of WiFi for the PC in the 1990's.
 
I played with wireless audio in the 1990's for back yard BBQ's and it worked well enough for me with nice speakers and $5 wireless el cheapo audio receivers and transmitters.  I wouldn't call it audio for the audiophile though.
 
Proprietary single function maybe.
 
I have more trust in powerline automation done right than wireless today. 
 
X10 and UPB is preferred more than wireless, Zigbee or Zwave and today X10 / UPB works 100% of the time.
 
I also have Zigbee and ZWave here and it works 100% of the time for me. 
 
It is my personal preference to use powerline because it's a transport medium (electricity) that is included today in most homes that I know of.
 
I have the least trust in Internet automation dependant (smart hub) on an ISP connection and here have two ISP connections.
 
I used to like Insteon until they started to bridge the phases with wireless and it became a hybrid protocal.
 
That said there is easy WiFi strategy - easy button if you are OK with willy nilly wireless propagation or multiple APs.
 
Here though not tethered to my smart phones / tablets in the home. They are mostly off when we are in the home. 
 
Tablets get used only on demand.
 
ALL incoming cell phone calls here in the home get rerouted or sunk in to nothing. 
 
I do have one cellular number in the house which is the failover of copper / VOIP if those fail.

 

[upstatemike]

I think I agree on most points except I might consider Lutron Radio RA2 for some areas even though it is wireless.
 
I think I will use wired audio in places where I need multiple zones to play in sync (most of the first floor) and whatever misc. options I want to experiment with in all the other stand-alone locations. I'll keep some squeezeboxes and Sonos players on line as source components. I need to move away from streaming as a primary strategy since Amazon has decided not to support uploading personal tracks going forward. Too much of what I listen to is not available from streaming services so I need to maintain a local library on my LAN or serially connected to a Russound or HTI system. Streaming is probably still OK in the bedrooms though and Echo dots make great alarm clocks.
 
I do also like using Alexa to control things so will have that Wi-Fi/Internet dependency for now but maybe I'll look more at CQC local voice control to mitigate that sometime in the future. I will also make sure I have alternative lighting controls in place for when the WAN is down.
 
I still might play with Ubiquity to upgrade my Wi-Fi down the road but first I want to see how much things get better simply by cutting back on Sonos and deploying Russound or HTI. I expect the improvement in stress level will be immediate.

 

[dgage]

You probably know this but RadioRa2 is on a different frequency (I think 315 MHz) so it isn’t on WiFi. So even if there are problems on the network, the main repeater can control the lighting. And remember the RadioRa2 switches still act like normal wired switches even if the Main Repeater is disconnected. Regarding an automation system controlling the lighting, one option is to directly connect the Main Repeater to the automation computer using a straight Ethernet connection and a second network card. I highly recommend RadioRa2 as it has been absolutely rock solid for over 5 years now.

 

[linuxha]

Hmm, got a bit lost on this thread. I tried to quote part of Pete's response and the quote got weird.
 
I'm a network guy and one of the first things you need to do is not to buy cheap network gear. A lot of consumer grade network gear has limited resources (mac tables that can handle 16, maybe 32 devices). This is the start of a lot of problems. I'm using a Ubiquiti firewall/router, my APs (I have 2 for 1500 sqft) are inside my network and I may need to upgrade those (OpenWRT but consumer devices). I may need to invest in newer switches but they're not consumer switches. I monitor everything with Nagios and I'm starting to play with Splunk (for IP accounting).
 
I've got a ton of devices, the DNS, caching and DHCP is handled by a Linux box (not the APs or router) and it's redundant.
 
I have ZigBee, Z-Wave, IP/wired and IP/WiFi along with terminal servers. I'd say I'm mostly wired but I like the Sonoffs with custom software and MQTT.
 
I have no trust in X10 or Insteon with PLC protocol. My home eats PLC. As for Insteon I also don't trust that they will last.
 
I like the wireless world for convience but I have a lot on the wire for things I need to trust.
 
And as Pete said, complexity is an issue.

 

[pete_c]

@Neil,
 
Here use italics for quotes rather than wrapping the text in quotes.  Easier for me.
 
I do a copy and paste of text then highlight the text and use italics or a quote.
 
Hmm, got a bit lost on this thread. I tried to quote part of Pete's response and the quote got weird.
 

Hmm, got a bit lost on this thread. I tried to quote part of Pete's response and the quote got weird.

 

[upstatemike]

+10 on Ubiquiti Unifi AP and Ubiquiti router! I have an Edgerouter Pro 8 that I got on a Woot fire sale, $50 more than an ER Lite and the Unifi AC Pro is rock solid. They both just work. I did a firmware update today on the AP, had been up for 63 days 18 hours without so much as a burp, snark or glitch of any sort.  I can monitor all aspects of the AP from my phone via their UniFi software.
 
If you want to go for future proofing, complete overkill and 100% up-time (even during firmware updates) on your AP go with the AC HD Pro, it's new to the market in 17 and has a 4x4 antenna instead of 3x3 in the AC Pro but is priced over 2x the AC Pro (Amazon prices.)
 
Here's a review ARS Technica did on the AC Pro in 2015, article convinced me Ubiquiti Unifi was the way to go...

 
So I did some more research on Ubiquiti and looking at the manual for the Edgerouter Pro 8 I didn't see much info on multi-Wan configuration. What options does it have for fail-over vs. load sharing etc? The managed switch options are also a little confusing. Looks like there are several POE switch models that are exactly the same except for amount of power they can provide?
 
Also currently troubleshooting a new device on my network that I can't find (everything I add gets a DHCP reservation with a plain English name and this device pulled an unreserved address with no name). The MAC address doesn't appear on any AP so it must be wired but the router can't provide enough info on the NIC manufacturer or address it is talking to for me to figure out what it is. I will figure it out eventually but am wondering if managed switches would help me track down stuff like this? Ideally I would like to look at something that says this MAC is connected to port x on switch y so I can go look at whatever I plugged in and forgot about.

 

[JonW]

Some managed switches can report what MAC is on what port, so that could help track it down.
 
Another option is to load up Wireshark and filter to only that MAC address.  Looking at the traffic and destination will likely tell you who/what it is.

 

[pete_c]

If you have a RPi around you can utilize nmap.
 
1 - install it
sudo apt-get install nmap
 
2 - run it 
Here is an example on my home network.
 
sudo nmap -sP 192.168.244.128/25
 
It will show all of the devices in IP order with their mac and mfg of network hardware
 
Here is an extract of part of my touchscreens with customized mac addresses.
 
MAC Address: 00:0E:C6:00:00:01 (Asix Electronics)
Nmap scan report for 192.168.244.202
Host is up (-0.10s latency).
MAC Address: 00:0E:C6:00:00:02 (Asix Electronics)
Nmap scan report for 192.168.244.203
Host is up (-0.10s latency).
MAC Address: 00:0E:C6:00:00:03 (Asix Electronics)
Nmap scan report for 192.168.244.205
Host is up (0.00012s latency).
MAC Address: 00:0E:C6:00:00:05 (Asix Electronics)
Nmap scan report for 192.168.244.207
Host is up (0.00017s latency).
MAC Address: 00:0E:C6:00:00:07 (Asix Electronics)
Nmap scan report for 192.168.244.210
 
With a managed switch you can port mirror one port and sniff all of the traffic on the mirrored port.
 
If you telnet or ssh to the device you can do a trace router or check the routing tables to see where the network goes.
 
Relating to a switch single devices are connected per port of switch.  It's a visual thing. 
 
You can label the hardware, cable and switch port.  I put this in a spreadsheet and drawing of my network.

 

[batwater]

So I did some more research on Ubiquiti and looking at the manual for the Edgerouter Pro 8 I didn't see much info on multi-Wan configuration. What options does it have for fail-over vs. load sharing etc? The managed switch options are also a little confusing. Looks like there are several POE switch models that are exactly the same except for amount of power they can provide?
 
Also currently troubleshooting a new device on my network that I can't find (everything I add gets a DHCP reservation with a plain English name and this device pulled an unreserved address with no name). The MAC address doesn't appear on any AP so it must be wired but the router can't provide enough info on the NIC manufacturer or address it is talking to for me to figure out what it is. I will figure it out eventually but am wondering if managed switches would help me track down stuff like this? Ideally I would like to look at something that says this MAC is connected to port x on switch y so I can go look at whatever I plugged in and forgot about.

 
I have not implemented dual WAN myself yet, on the list once I identify a cellular fallback solution. Below link is a place to start...
 
https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/205145990-EdgeRouter-Dual-WAN-Load-Balance-Feature
 
On the MAC address look up I'm using a Fingbox to monitor my network (first and only kick starter I've ever contributed to.) You should be able to do a scan with just the Fing app, available on IOS and Android.
 
-Ben

 

[upstatemike]

Thanks for the links. Fing looks interesting but not sure it does what I need. I not only want to see what a device is doing but also exactly where on my network it is doing it from... down to the precise switch and port (or AP and band), especially if I don't have the MAC address already documented for some reason. Ideal would be a graphic showing the ports on a switch with the MAC address of what is connected to each port plus info on bandwidth consumption, errors, etc.

 

[batwater]

I can identify the MAC address by looking at each switch and doing a  System> Summary> MAC Address Table on each switch. It looks like it might also identify MAC addresses talked to. There may be some way to aggregate the information.