Options for a local-only (or mostly) home network
I’m currently using Eero https://eero.com/ for my home network, as it mostly works well and is easy for my partner to enable and disable our kids devices at bedtime etc. The interface is quite slow, and I worry about being so cloud and Amazon dependant.
I’m wondering if there’s a local-only, ideally open, alternative? Most alternatives eg Ubiquiti seem to be becoming cloud based, and the likes of open wrt isn’t very partner-friendly.
Is there a middle ground? My requirements are modest, just a few wireless access points plus a handful of wired devices. Internet is max 1 gigabit.
In what way are the eeros slow? If you run Ethernet between them you’ll get full WiFi speed from all of them. Wireless backhaul will destroy your speed with any product unless they have directional antennae
To clarify - the interface is slow, and won’t work without the cloud connection.
The network is great.
Unifi can run the interface locally, via cloud, out both. I have a UDM and most of the time I access the interfaces locally.
Do you think the mobile app would be easy for a vaguely technical person to enable and disable groups of devices? Last time I looked at ubiquiti it wasn’t really “consumer” oriented.
It’s more “prosumer”. Definitely not designed for lay-people.
It’s more “prosumer”. Definitely not designed for lay-people.
I ordered a GL Mango router a few days ago for the purpose of having a small independent WiFi network at home for my IoT experiments. That little box seems to be doing a lot network wise, it has a wan and a LAN port (no gigabit sadly...) and a nice web interface (based on openwrt) . I haven't received it yet but I'm suggesting that you have a look on the off-chance that it might answer your needs...
Pi Hole?
That’s something I will look into. I could have a simple network stack and use pihole to manage access. I was thinking in terms of a single solution, but perhaps this is a better alternative.
Are you looking for a mesh wifi setup or can you run an Ethernet cable to each location you want an access point? If you can't run a cable to each spot then an off the shelf mesh wifi system is still your best bet, there may be some that are less cloud connected but they are meant to be dead simple so that usually means an app and a cloud service of some sort.
If your just looking for an alternative to content and ad filtering for the kids I would recommend AdGuard for a partner friendly setup and Pihole for a more enthusiast setup.
I run my Eeros on a wired connection so I don’t really /need/ a mesh.
I’ll look at adguard and pihole - I had been thinking in terms of the network controlling access for kids, I suppose there are other ways of achieving that, eg through a firewall or dns.
Since you don't need an off the shelf mesh you could definitely go with just regular access points, check out ruckus and ubiquity (they have cloud stuff but it's completely optional) used stuff on ebay. You can just setup each access point with the same SSID and password and your devices will pick the best one for the most part. You could also play with broadcast strength if they overlap too much.
AdGuard and Pihole are both dns based btw.