Hassio in my dead zone "double nat'ing"

Configuration
1

I have a dead zone in the bedroom of my apartment, but i do have a network drop there. My solution: plug my Tenda AC1200 into the my network drop, Set its IP address to something that doesnt conflict with my current router, set the SSID and key to the same as my current WiFi, and turn off DHCP.

The last step was to pray that I’m not double nat’ing - which i guess went unanswered because I’m pretty sure that is what is happening.

I now get wifi in the dead zone, but i cant say that it roaming seemlessly between the two.

Most importantly, my Home Assistant is not seeing any of the devices that are on Wifi in the bedroom. (RPi4 Connected via ethernet to my Main Router)

  1. I’ve learned all these terms basically since lockdown, and I think what I am trying to do is possible, but is it?
  2. How are people with homes much bigger than my 850 sq/ft apartment dealing with this?
2

You have 3 options : -

  1. Buy a dedicated WiFi extender circa $20
  2. Use the eth 1 on the router and tell it to turn into an access point referring all dhcp requests upstream to the main router
  3. Reflash the router, if it won’t let you do 2. To get round the blocks (ie do 2. Anyway). This depends on your router and its options, also what ‘firmware’ is available to update it with

These start easy and get complex

1 Like
3

Thank you for the response!

So I guess the thing that I was trying to do with the router in the dead zone (bedroom) is turn it into an access point. Using that term, I just searched and it looks like some people in this situation, in addition to doing the steps that I have done also configure the two routers to use non-overlapping wifi bands. Does that seem critical?

4

Ideally yes, but practically … You will be lucky

Get a wifi analyser for your phone/tablet.
This will show you what local wifi bands (both 2.4Ghz and 5GHz) are being used. I’d guess ALL of them. The best you can do is choose the least congested area and stake a claim there.
Wifi Bands Overlap unless you ony have 3 users in the neighbourhood and by pre-arrangement they agree to use channels 1, 7 and 13 (If that’s the case paint me purple and call me susan )

The idea about non overlapping bands is that if you are relaying a message from a device on 1 access point to another device on the other AP then they won’t be shouting on the same sub-frequencies.
So you’ve just used up two of the bands, good luck on the remaining one :rofl:
Seriously, people have come to blows about “hogging bandwidth” be careful, especially in hevily populated areas. It’s also common to use an SSID as a passivive aggressive (not so passive) slight. e.g. “Wendy Is Open For New Business” etc

1 Like