The Angry Dad's Guide to Awesome Home WiFi 

See, the trick is to have a house small enough to only need 1 access point.

Yes, VLAN video is needed. Thank you Dave! 👍

It's truly amazing how you manage to point out every important aspect of the subjects you dive in to, time and time again. I hope you realize how helpful this is, perhaps intentionally, but in any way of good use. So, thank you Mr. Plummer!

As a farmer, mechanic, and tech person with some programming experience I love your channel! ALL your videos interest me from the lessons in computer history(got my first pc in '93), programming, your garage, your truck and light mods, and showing us how your home network is setup. It's only slightly out of reach for most but gives us a glimpse into what we may be using eventually or parts we may want to copy ourselves. Just keep showing us around and how you do things as it all contains very valuable lessons/information. Even though I fully grasp most everything you've discussed I still feel I've learned something by the end. As mentioned, you explain things along with all the hiccups you encountered doing it yourself. This is how I try to explain things to others but it is underappreciated in most cases and seems like a waste of my breathe at times. I appreciate the way you do it. It feels like accelerated learning. Have a good one!

Great video! A couple of clarifications: Band Steering usually works by ignoring Probe Requests in 2.4 GHz. When a client sends Probe Requests in 2.4 GHz, the infrastructure will ignore them X amount of times, causing most clients to only see the 5 GHz APs. It works... but can cause devices in 2.4 GHz to take longer to associate. Fast Roaming works by speeding up authentication when a client roams. Basically, it skips a number of steps in the association/authentication process. As a result, it's not actually seamless, but it is fast enough that the user typically won't notice, or the interruption in their application will be minimal. Sweet network setup!

Hi Dave. This was a very interesting session. I would appreciate a wireless VLAN tutorial. Many thanks.

A few years ago, my son talked me into buying a brand of router I'd never heard of. Ubiquity makes a brand called Amplifi. I bought the Amplifi router and it's been bullet proof since. Even automatically downloads firmware updates, slick mesh points and it just works. Hat's off to Ubiquiti for solid hardware

Dave, my APs have been fighting me for the last 4 days making my family crazy. thank you again for being punctual on solving my issues that I didn't even realize you knew I was having. Informative and useful as always. and yes, a video on VLANs would be greatly appreciated.

Dave, you've just described the plight my dad has battled for decades. Me, my mom, and my sisters have bemoaned the poor Wi-fi for years!

Very clearly explained. I especially liked the last section on VLAN & the importance of segmenting your network.

Fantastic video Dave! After about a year of debating on which solution to go with, I finally bit the bullet and ordered the Dream machine SE, a switch, and two of Unifi access points. It all arrives tomorrow, so glad to see you post this. As always, your content is both informative and entertaining.. Thank you!

Dave, I greatly appreciate your hard work on making this channel and I would definitely appreciate a video dedicated to VLAN explanation, implementation, and descriptions of use cases.

Yes, please do a LOT more content VLANs. Thanks, as always, for sharing your experience.

Hi Dave. Great Stuff! I'm sure a VLAN tutorial would be well-received by us all. btw I hope your back is progressing well.

Great video! I completely agree about hardwiring APs. In fact, when working ISP tech support I always advised people to hardwire any non-portable devices to alleviate them off their wireless bandwidth, especially in apartments or densely populated areas. It’s amazing how much people rely on Wi-Fi these days, yet they take so little if any time at all to understand it.

I found your channel like an hour ago and I've already learned so much. Thank you so much!

Thanks again Dave. I am a retired IT manager but have been out of the game for so long that I feel literally left behind with today's technology. I actually retired prior to the AdVent of Wi-Fi becoming the standard that it is today. (back in the day everything was hard lined many hours at a punch down block LOL) Your videos are like an advanced refresher course . I enjoy every one of them and to be quite honest they bring back so many memories to those early network/PC days . absolutely, I think you should do a VLAN follow-up.

VLANs are an oft misunderstood concept. I really struggled with it when I was trying to get my head around it for my home network and one thing I found is that the ease of deployment seems to be variable between switch vendors. I'm giving a talk on VLANs and Switchdev next week :)

OMG that house! Very nice, Dave. I use UniFi as well. I had to run cat6 in my house, man that was a job. I also used the Ubiquiti in wall access points too. So every room in the house has it's own hard-wired ethernet and WiFI access points. Next up is setting up a media server so I can stop consuming so much data from the outside world.

Awesome setup, Dave. Very well thought through and executed.

Those Unifi wap's and their entire ecosystem is amazing. They do such a good job at not making it completely proprietary and at the same time making it all work together smoothly. The PoE options are also a big plus.

Hi Dave, Another old-timer Bob here. I really like listening to old time tech in your channel. Before I forget, let me put in a plug for more vlan coverage. I go back to IBM 360 assembler and customized worldwide networking with Pan Am and Avis in the late '60s and early '70s. I jumped on the mini and micro train while I continued to work with mainframes in the '80s and beyond. I loved windows when it came out, but I grew cold to it after 7. I'm retired now and I live in Linux. I usually keep a single modern windows machine to run a few windows apps reliably. Thanks for your channel.

Excellent video, you always explain everything in a clear and concise, simple but technical way. Thank you. Great channel

Great Video Dave, I wish I saw this 6 years ago when I had the exact same issues. I was lucky and stumbled on the Unifi access points, I installed 3 of the long range units and haven't had a single issue since then.

As usual, another great video! There's always something interesting happening at Dave's Garage! And please my friend, tell us more about your VLANs! Keep rocking! 🚀

Thanks Dave for creating this video it was exactly the content I was looking for. I’ve been looking into Ubiquity for some time now and your video has been helpful. Thanks again.

I've been running Unifi gear in my sprawling house (not as large or nice as Dave's though!) since 2018. I can vouch for everything that he has said here. There's also a lot more to it that he hasn't (yet?) covered. In depth VLAN for example.

Love the channel. I'm glad you have grown so much. Been watching for a while now. Definitely would love to see a video on VLANs, even though I already understand them.

This should be named “The angry parents’ guide to home wifi”. This mom is the one who handles all things tech.

My UDM Pro died after 2 years of service right after attempting the latest UnifiOS update. I had a bad feeling about it and waited a while till finally decided to update. It no longer booted, thankfully I still had my old Linksys router which had 8 ethernet ports and I was able to have a functional network while I RMAd my unit. Really enjoyed your video thanks for sharing.

Just a head's up: VLANs alone do not limit access across VLANs. A device on one VLAN could communicate with equipment on another VLAN via any device permitted to forward packets. The exception is guest networks, which have firewalling in place by default to isolate devices connecting to that network. On your non-guest VLANs, you should consider what you need & want, then configure the firewall accordingly. Another tip: Produce QR codes and flash NFC tags with the connection information for your guest network, then visitors can connect to that network without typing in a PSK and you don't need to leave the guest network SSID open.

I have a UDM Pro as well, with 5 APs, 4 in the house and 1 in the sheshed. I love the system. Gotta add one more AP where I have a small deadzone in the most critical usage place, the bath room.

Hi Dave always a pleasure to listen to you, this one was on point and it hit home, yeah I think I need a refresher on VLAN

I'm glad I'm not alone with my wifi woes. I just bought some TP Link equipment but haven't had a chance to try it out Love how great your videos are. I think I understand VLANs but I'm sure you have lots to teach me.

Really would like to hear more about this VLAN setup. Thanks for the great, easy to follow information.

Thanks for posting this so it's easy to understand. I've got my network setup the same way, but have struggled to explain to others how I've got it configured. I'm a foster parent to teenagers so I try my best to keep internet usage safe including making specific wifi networks that shut off at 10:00 to encourage kids to put devices down and go to bed. I've been trying to figure out a good way to document my setup to share with other foster families but haven't taken the time to do so. I'll be sharing this with others, thanks

That was super cool, actually gave me some new insight to home networking apart from just having my modem, and one router to do all the work.

Off course Dave, do the VLAN video. From explaining the technology, packet management and how routing is done, to use cases and the angry dad's recommended brand of choice.

Definitely want a van video, would be much more appreciated than I could ever express in words. Thanks for the awesome content.

Dave, great minds think alike. I'm a fan of the Ubiquiti solution as well. I'm just starting the process of setting up an IOT network and would love to hear what you have had luck doing. I think the specific trickier points to set up are going to be items like... how to Cast from a phone on main network to Roku on IOT network. I'm sure the firewall rules and which rules for typical items are going to be the trickiest part of this!

so much information. This is the ultimately 'home' deployment as it has elements of SMB network deployment elements. Very well done.

Dave I would love to see an episode about vlans. I was trying to deploy a network at my office trying to use vlans to separate printer and server access to certain clients only. While also offering a guest network, and I still don't understand what to do or how to implement it today. Most forums speak about it like we should be born knowing what a VLAN is. I would love to see an episode with your breakdown on it. As always thank you for your videos Dave!

Thank you. Yes please, VLan Videos would be great. Much needed. Along with the why, when how and alternatives and do’s and dont’s but please always discuss the security side to do things and offer an alternative with minimal compromise etc. Thank you for your contributions and helpfulness. Great channel.

That setup looks really nice! thankfully my 800sqft home only needs one wireless router in a central location to meet most of my needs.

Nice tips given here, Dave. For optimal performance, signal level should be kept above -67dBm. WiFiman is a good app to track wifi signal for iPhone+Android. In high density scenarios, where your APs coverage significantly overlap, try to reduce the transmit power to a point where you're keeping good signal and performance. For the record, some Wi-Fi devices have either poor antenna design, or limited transmit power. Reducing transmit power will reduce the cases where your devices still indicate 3 bars of signal and yet gets poor performance. Remember the rule: "WiFi works best when APs whisper and stations shout." Last thing: making your AP transmitting above 100mW / 20dBm is futile, as a wide range of devices won't be able to send data beyond that power level. Hardcore advices (don't bother if this doesn't mean anything to you): - Set DTIM to 3 to optimize power consumption on mobile devices. - Turn on Multicast optimization, especially if you're using your carrier's IPTV service (country/service specific). - For 2.4GHz, disable 802.11b rates if all your devices support at least 802.11g. - Enable 802.11d (world mode) and set your country code (especially if you welcome people from foreign places, or if you live in Europe, this will make the device adjust to your local regulations). - Set your APs to ignore any signal below -83dBm on 2.4GHz. - Enable UNII-II channels and DFS if you don't live near an airport or a weather radar (country specific, check local regulations). There's a lot more to say, but this comment is already getting too long.

I've been using a Unifi AP since about 2019, and now have 3 around the house. When I rebuilt my network (then still in an apartment) around 2014, I used a Ubiquiti Edgemax router, but didn't go with a Unifi AP initially. Since I only needed one, I didn't want a system that required a controller, and at that time they only used a special passive 24V PoE mode. So I went through two different brands of APs for a while, which each had various problems (mostly related to either VLANs, IPv6, or RADIUS). Eventually I decided just to get a Unifi after they switched to standard 802.3af, and by that time I had a VM server set up for other applications I could run the controller on. They've definitely figured out how to dominate the market for small installations that need more professional features. I think the key was pricing the entry level APs around $100 and not requiring dedicated hardware or software licensing for the controller.

Might be one of the few times in my life that I can truly say I completely relate to Dave on something. I believe almost every Dad knows this struggle.

Dave, Much respect for the channel, just my kind of content. also much respect for your contributions to Windows OS. i also love ubiquiti gear and have a hardwired network in my house. i fully understand the pain of my children saying dad my youtube kids is offline again, they have no idea what we grew up with!! funniest part for me is when the network or isp goes down and its just my fault. Kids read a book of play a game on the floor not watch a screen. I wish i could get them off the instant gratification, but they are only 7 & 10. Rant over, much respect for task manager it has been a constant help for years of windows troubleshooting amongst other things.

Great video, thanks for describing the setup and best practices of UniFi.

Your channel is awesome! Thank you so much for the work you put into this information.

I too use Unifi. I started with the UDM and once I saw how good it was, I immediately upgraded to the UDM Pro and one AP. Now I have four WiFi 6e APs and three 10G switches. All of my APs are hard wired with meshing turned off. Absolutley love Unifi! But the same for me, it has been almost 2 years now so I also have the original UDM Pro with a 1TB WD Blue SSD and three G4 Pro camera. 77 devices, lol on four separate networks and four separate SSIDs with one being IoT only.

Great video Dave, I'd love to see a VLAN video. I'm a networking expert but it's always enlightening to see how other people implement VLAN's unique to their own environments.

Great video on the pains of "dad the wifi is down" which any parent has heard. A video on VLANs would be nice. I am in the process of doing a ESP32 LED display for the house based on your videos. Thanks

VLAN setup and admin would be a great topic. Thanks for the info and greetings from San Francisco.

I’m literally sorting ours out and want unifi. Great vid. What a house!

Dave, always great videos! Thanks! Please add a video about VLANs.

You got me interested in vlans and learning more about networking than I already do

Yes Dave please give a talk on VLAN

Love your work Dave. Thanks for the content. Cheers from OZ

Yes please, Dave. A VLAN episode would be great! Thank you!

Flex all you want Dave, you deserve it, and your giving back, Thank You! People like you give me something to keep living and to strive for, never give up, never surrender! 😃

Great tip about isolating all those IOT devices into separate VLANs, plus one for guests. Thank you.

Nice and classic solution. The disadvantage is the binding with this vendor. We have done quite a few builds with a classic other solution. This solution is Mikrotik for core router and ubiquiti for wifi system, it is this hybrid implementation that behaves extremely well.

This is great Dave. I light up about 6 acres with 3 houses the same equipment. I have the SE version of the router BUT it’s important that folks understand that all the non SFP+ ports share the same 1gb controller. So I have the SE router connected to fiber to 3 pro 10G switches. Anyhow, thanks for the video.

Learned a lot from this episode! Thank you! Yes, please do an episode on vlan.

Awesome setup and big fan of your videos. That’s the kind of build many of us aspire to. I do think from a security perspective this has a whole lot of information in it, hopefully at least you got new ips as even though you have a few security appliances I would personally not want to share so much so publicly.

I had to go with 2 perm access points, and 1 temp one, just for the smoker. The trick was to use the same SSID and put everything on a different channel. No issues.

I started down this rabbit hole with UniFi , a udm pro and the smallest ap they had. Now it’s evolved to 15 G4 bullets 2 48 port pro switches a 24 port and a 16 port pro units and a unvr. I wouldn’t say I have any regrets but I wanna do more. Thank you for your awesome content I found your channel a little over a year ago and I’ve enjoyed it immensely!!

Your mention of do we want a video on vlans is a Yes Please. I’m an IT generalist working my day job but would like to learn more about the ins and outs of vlans for work and home use. That would be great if you can swing it, thanks!

a big 👍 to the extras! Great performances guys!

VLAN sounds like a great video idea! I'd love to be able to strategically expose some internal devices on the net to more than one VLAN, so I can keep a super secure on for just my stuff and stick anyone else on a passworded, but still sandboxed one, while they could still access some internal servers or other stuff.

As I watch this I realize just how different youtube content creators are as many take a lot of their audiences knowledge for granted. I have watched so much content on setting up a home network, never mind WIFI, and in many cases am still left with often times basic questions. I have been researching the Ubiquiti gear for months now, and even their own site is lacking. This is a great video on home networking in general. Thank you!! Also I would never have considered the Dream Machine SE, but now that you explain how it fits into the entire ecosystem it seems a no brainer. Now with WIFI 7 just around the corner I have to decide whether I want to invest money into WIFI 6, or just wait. I'm hoping that Ubiquiti's lack of emphasis on 6E is just them eagerly working away at the real replacement for WIFI 6. Fingers crossed. Tip for other viewers, you can never ever run too much ethernet cable. I wish I would have pulled three times the cable I did during my most recent remodel. As you elude to Dave, if you have a device that is stationary (eg. attached to a wall, or sitting on a desk) then try to hardwire it with ethernet cable. If it has an ethernet port then try and fill it. I'm trying to hardwire all of my TV's, which means I am going to have to fish more cable, but it is what it is. Thumbs up again for a great video.

Ubiquiti stuff is addictive, too... you get used to being able to manage (and more importantly, diagnose) network issues. Also, I would enjoy a video about configuring VLANs.

It's a beauty to hear a mega sw engineer that knows well the ISO/OSI layers. Great man ! Btw... Every time I lainch now the task manager I have a small lag.... thinking at your video :-) ciao from Italy

Most of this i knew, but dang it, I still learned stuff! Ya did it again, Dave!

Good video :) Would like to see the VLAN video, indeed. While I know the basics, it'd be nice to get a more in depth look, and you do seem to have a way of explaining these things in a clear, concise and engaging manner :)

Thanks for this video. It was very helpful. I’d appreciate a VLAN video someday.

Trying to grasp vlan works/rules tutorials needed. Thanks. Rolly.

As someone who has just recently upgraded their internet connection and subsequently discovered that my internet is now faster than my home network, I now find myself researching how to up my game on my home network strategy. Great video and a vote from me for a followup VLAN video.

My house is a bit smaller but I am using five Unifi access points. I'm using slightly older (3) UAP-AC-Pro and (2) UAP-nanoHD access points. All of my APs have a 1Gbps PoE network connection. I could easily get away with less but bandwidth and reliability may be hampered. My APs can see nearly 500 other SSIDs in the neighborhood. My APs monitor channels and can de-power the transmission power to limit their range automatically. I have some variability throughout my property but in doing speed tests, the weakest area of my property provides at least 200 Mbps up and down, where most is around 400 Mbps up and down. I do my speed tests using both publicly available speed tests as well as my own speed test server running LibreSpeed. For devices that use WiFi, that should be plenty of bandwidth. If you need better bandwidth, I have plenty of network jacks throughout the house. I run my Unifi controller (UniFi Network Application) on a Ubuntu 22.04.2 VM. Like Dave, I have separate VLANs for my personal devices, IoT devices, and guests. I also include a VLAN for WiFi purposes for cameras. My camera network though has no direct access to the Internet, as I don't want them to report home to their manufacturer. The network video recorder has access to the camera network as well as another network. I have other wired VLANs for different web services operating on VMs. I don't use Ubiquiti's router though, I instead use pfSense Plus. Just after you enter my house, I have a picture frame that contains two custom-stylized QR codes. One directs your smartphone to connect with my guest VLAN and the other to run a speedtest with one of my LibreSpeed test servers. For those with devices without cameras, I also have the SSID and passphrase needed to gain access to my guest VLAN, as well as the URL for my speed test server.

For private stuff I can also VERY MUCH recommend the smaller DreamRouter, it has almost all you need in one product (controller+wifi 6). I replaced my three USG + cloudkey with DreamRouters (keep my old APs) and it works so well. Most "families" might not have the need for a rack mounted network maybe ;-) thx Dave for your inspired videos.

just to say a very intuitive video on networking helped brush up a few things

Thank You this was very helpful. Would love an episode on v-lans.

Okay, so look: In the wide range of excellent Dave videos, this one takes the cake! I mean come on, the dog even joined in! I LOVE IT Dave! Glad the family played along. I help out friend's who have the same "Dad issues." Never enough bandwidth, always too many devices. Every kid "needs" a mobile, laptop, tablet, their own Roku/Apple TV/yada, and the IOT devices wreck 2.4GHz if left uncontrolled. Thank you for doing this. I shared it (after watching it four or five times and laughing each time!) with a few dozen friends. BTW all of them seem to LOVE your channel! I tell them to Like & Subscribe. Oh and the book?--It's on everyone's Amazon birthday/Christmas list. Please keep these great videos coming! And say "Hi" to the family from all of us.

TP-Link has come out with a somewhat-similar solution with their Omada line, but I've been using Unifi for several years for my APs (and cameras). The controller's handling of multiple APs is *so* convenient.

I work for an MSP and. Unifi is what we use. When you are managing multiple companies the UniFi console is the greatest thing you're able to manage all of your clients it's awesome

Dave, my setup almost mirrors what you explained. I started with the Linksys 54wrt and switched to unifi about 10 years ago. We use the Cisco wireless controller (WLC) at work and was pleasantly surprised at how the unifi controller seamlessly managed the network without much fuss. No dedicated H/W and most settings out of the box just work. I have since recommended/setup the unifi solution for friends and family and almost never receive the "support calls" usually disguised dinner invitation to fix stuff. The VLAN setup is pretty straightforward no CLI or in depth knowledge required - you might want to explain that in a future video.

This is gonna be awesome. Always look forward to Dave’s videos.

I'd like to hear more about your Crestron home automation. My experience with Crestron (and AMX) is that only technicians who would for a certified Crestron installers have the tools to configure and maintain the systems. That's definitely a no-go for someone like me who wants to be able to configure a home automation system myself.

Great video Dave as always. Your setup is more impressive than my companies. We added ubiquiti Wi-Fi to replace our old WiFi equipment today though, but I don’t see the need for the dream machine.

Very neat setup. I would recommend getting a cable management box. A piece of hardware you would put in your rack to manage cables.

I ended up setting up a wifi 6E mesh network with 4 nodes across the house and it works surprisingly well.

Excellent video, thanks Dave.

Hi Dave. Great Video Thank-you very Much. Yes, Please make a video about V-LAN's.

Happy to know that I set up basically the same network without the udmpro as I use the software version to control APs installed on a local VM and a HP 24 1G ports with Poe and recently added a microtick 10g switch to handle faster devices and the 5gbps internet box

Great video one thing to watch for with vlan in unifi depending on how you set them up they may have routes to the other vlan setup by default

Man you hit a nerve on this one! we had the same issues only we went TP Link and omada controller due to cost but works like a charm! also we used Ubiquity Light Beams to make a connection between our PFSense router and another property 1000ft away. on the other property I built a solar powered job box and attached a pole with an outdoor wifi and the light beam on the property and used golf cart batteries to power it all. No power on my other property... anyway it all worked out and now we have wifi all over our mountain.

Yes, definitely interested in the VLAN video. I don't have that dream networked home you have but I want to have my server/NAS, cables for all devices, and a better internet connection, but most importantly, make my network better managed than it is now.

This is a really fun one, great intro!

Yes please on a video about VLANs. I just started figuring out home networking and setting up a homelab, so VLANs would be interesting to play with.