The lease expires, it is just that when it does, the same IP address is handed out.
Look this is just rubbish.
In fact any device you reserve an IP address for MUST be in the DHCP range otherwise it won’t get a gateway and dns servers and subnet mask allocated unless you effectively configure those devices completely manually with all that information.
There is ZERO reason not to reserve an IP address for a device in the DHCP range. Even if it’s a full static configured device you can do that as well… the device won’t get it from the DHCP server and the router won’t hand it to anything else either.
What could be causing a problem is if you have some other device using an IP address and you are trying to reserve it for something else but generally your router won’t let you do that.
I have maybe a DHCP range os ~150 IP addresses and everything on my network for HA uses reserved IP addresses from that range. Even my HA server has a configured IP address from that range. This all just works.
If your network is taking 30 minutes to be up and happy you definitely have some king of configuration issue. This should all just take seconds. It does sound like you have another DNS server… pihole? Adguard? You definitely have something causing conflicts and timeouts.
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With OPNsense, static IP addresses must not be within the DHCP range.
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Good thing he’s not using that then right? Good to know.
In your words ‘This is just rubbish’ all my devices have assigned 'fixed IP’s from my DHCP server and these addresses are all outside of the DHCP range. I have more than 100 devices on my Unifi network set up this way and I only have a pool of 50 DHCP addresses. All devices get gateway, DNS and gateway information correctly set. I do not have any network issues with DHCP or device IP’s
Again ‘this is just rubbish’ devices with static addresses should not be configured in the DHCP range - the router may allocate them - this happens if a device sleeps and isn’t detectable on the network at the time.
I’m not going to participate further - I’m trying to help George and all your advice does is make his situation confused by encouraging him to place every device, static, DHCP or allocated fixed via DHCP withinin the DHCP range creating more problems. In fact you may as well not create a DHCP range in your understanding - just allocate the full subnet range of addresses to DHCP. All rubbish
That’s not correct. Or at least it might depend on the specific implementation of the DHCP server. The documentation for the (very popular) ISC DHCP Server mentions here:
There may be a host declaration matching the client’s identification. If that host declaration contains a fixed-address declaration that lists an IP address that is valid for the network segment to which the client is connected, the DHCP server will never do dynamic address allocation. In this case, the client is required to take the address specified in the host declaration
And a few lines below:
If no existing lease is found, or if the client is forbidden to receive the existing lease, then the server will look in the list of address pools for the network segment to which the client is attached for a lease that is not in use and that the client is permitted to have.
I’m not a native speaker, but to my understanding the documentation states, that an IP reservation needs to be within the networks subnet specification, while the dynamically associated IPs come from the specified pools (the DHCP range), which are part of the same subnet. Hence a reserved IP from within the pool may not pose any problem, but it’s also totally fine to assign an IP from outside the pool. Actually, assigning an address prom the pool reduces the number of avilable IPs for other clients. So from my understanding it does make sense to set IP-reservations outside the pool.
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Plus it also shows by IP that the specific device is either using a static address or is being assigned a fixed address by DHCP. Or in other words clearly identifies by IP devices using basic DHCP
Well I’m glad that’s settled. Thanks guys.
Just one quick question though. I have asked a few other questions (as I said, I’m very new to Home Assistant). But most haven’t received a single response. (I think networking is a topic on tech forums that always receives a lot of passionate interest, lol). I wonder if any of you guys could look at my other content and maybe advise? Thanks.
On a final note, what do you guys think about this router? https://bit.ly/3ry5pjI I haven’t given up on my current setup yet - and hopefully having applied all of the advice here it will now be stable, but I think if I did change my router it would be hard to go wrong with this.
You have opened 9 threads. All but one have a response. The other hss a completely in appropriate bump from you.
Most of your questions have been answered. If they haven’t, remember it is holidays and we are scattered all round the world.
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Buy a used HP 620 Plus or 730 with a multi-port NIC, install OPNsense, and you problems end. With a dual band MIMO access point, you won’t ever post again about network issues.
This is impossible. If they are outside the dhcp range then surprise, dhcp won’t be allocating them anything and they must all be 100% manually configured.
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I would think most consumer level routers would do it as I describe. My Fritzbox certainly works exactly in the manner I describe.
You are both right. It all depends on how the vendor decided to interpret the term. I have seen it explained both ways and the difference is what you define as the DHCP range. Some point out that it is the entire subnet and carve a sub range within that range for reservation and some others define within the same subnet as a reserved IP range and a DHCP range. At the end what it will be self explanatory when you will have to set it up.
As for the OP, as others have said, 36 devices is not all that much. If you had more than 50, I would understand but any consumer router should be able to handle that. Not sure what the problem is and DHCP reservation is probably a good start. Router replacement would be next.
Now for personal opinion, I am very lukewarm to say the least on ubiquiti. I have been an avid ubnt user, active forum member and beta tester for years and as of a few months ago ditched it.
My line of work makes me very close to the hardware. The unifi platform is not quite for the basic level consumer as it is quite involved yet it isn’t quite professional worthy because the hardware used is for the most part sub entry level consumer grade chipset which no other vendor wants to use due to poor performance. In other words, it analogous to awesome makeup applied on a pig. The example of the AC-pro: You are getting a $20 obsoleted router by D-Link from 2011 for $100 which performs worse than the gen5 Apple AEx n class gen5.
It works for the most part, offers frequent upgrades, has pretty complex bugs but a plethora of configurability and controls, many of which you probably won’t care for in a home setup. The performance is often 2 generations behind stuff you can buy for half it’s price but it will likely be better supported and more reliable. It is awfully popular and backed by a large suit of fanboys who will deny and bash people for denigrating them though in spite of test results. I personally ditched my large unifi installation (12 switches, 4APs) for a mix of Netgear pro, zyxel and engenius equipment for half the cost, double the performance and none of the problems as I am no longer spending my time testing firmwares in hope of elusive performance improvements and bug fixes while unnecessary and sometimes degrading features are being forcefully implemented.
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I haven’t had any problems since making the recommended changes. But if I do, given what you have said about the Ubiquti router and the vagaries of buying consumer grade routers in general, I might just buy a mini-pc for around the £100 mark and make my own router. At least I’ll know what hardware is in it. Or maybe a better route is to ask what router would be the best choice for open source firmware flashing? Either way, unless I have any more problems, hopefully the changes I have made will resolve my issues and I won’t need to spend any more money on routers for a few years.
You have opened 9 threads. All but one have a response. The other hss a completely in appropriate bump from you.
I missed this. Sorry. Fine dude. Chill and be happy. 
Enjoy your holidays. 
I think it’s fair enough coming to a topic that’s completely new to me that I am likely to have a lot of questions. Yes I know how to search the forum and I have done exactly that and have learned some useful things from doing so. But it’s useful to remember that Home Assistant is constantly changing (and hopefully improving along with it!) and I have been warned a number of times by other fellow noobs, that a lot of the information the forum tends to be a bit old and out of date, before significant numbers of people have a chance to apply that advice. I have certainly found that the advice for integrating some of my things is more than 2 years old in some cases - which by all accounts is an age in the Home Assistant Universe.
Certainly the thread that has gotten the most attention is this one. Perhaps this might be because a lot of the guys here have some background in networking and it’s a subject that is close to their hearts? But I certainly deeply appreciate the advice I have so far been given.
Sorry I didn’t know that bumping in this particular forum was frowned upon. I’m old enough to remember the early days of BBS/php forums, of which I was (and remain) a frequent visitor. Each forum back then (as now) had their own set of ‘netiquette’ type rules. But most generally bumping was considered acceptable, if a user allowed at least 24 hours or so to pass before doing so.
But again if this irked you somehow I apologise. I wasn’t aware bumping was frowned upon perhaps a little more harshly here than on other forums. Your point has been noted. It has been quite a long time since anyone ever told me off for anything, lol. 
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It is also important to distinguish the router from the Access Point (AP). It is confusing nowadays because most consumer devices are called “wireless routers” = Router + AP. Some ISPs even provide you with a wireless router modem…
You can go the single device router or the split device route. For either device types the unifi offering is abysmally obsolete and overpriced. So I would completely second people using a mini PC to run opensense/pfsense and separate it from the AP. If your installation is small though, it may not be worth it. There are a lot of consumer grade devices which you can flash with open source firmwares. This would be a very good single device approach. Asus and netgear both offer some. I ran a netgear X4S for a few years on DDWRT… That thing runs on the faster version of the same chipset ubnt has in their UAP-AC HD/SHD/XG…
No friend I am not irked (except by being called “dude” LOL)
No problem at all with 9 threads. I was just pointing out that you have actually had responses to all of them.
As for bumping, I had the impression that 24 hours had not passed, but I may have been wrong 
Sorry if your a girl, or gender neutral somehow. All the best! Happy new year!