Question regarding network topology

Installation
1

Hi there,

I'm fairly new to Home Assistant; over the weekend I set up a Home Assistant Green, which went mostly smooth; it's connected to my preexisting Philips Hue devices without an issue.

However, I seem to have an issue with my network topology.

When I use topology a) I can access HA through my desktop PC and HA finds the SMLight without an issue. But I cannot connect to HA through my phone.
The reasoning behind this topology is, that I want to use the SMLight on a PoE switch to place it independent of my HA Green. The SMLight is my OTBR.

In contrast, when I use topology b) I can access HA both from my desktop PC as well through my Wifi, but then I cannot use the PoE functionality of the SMLight.

And when I use topology c) my HA Green does not connect to the SMLight.

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So long story short: In principle I want to use the first or the third topology, but none of them work quite the way I want them to.

Any idea on how to fix this?

Thanks in advance,
zulaman

2

It all depends on the configuration of the waveshare router.

Are you using VLANs? Are you actually using it as a router for whatever reason?
If you only need PoE, why not a plain PoE switch?

3

From your picture it looks like A and C options gives you two separate networks. You don't want two routers in your network. Check if one of your routers support access point mode. Enable that and you should be able to talk to everything on the network, regardless of A or C setups. Connect it like this: Fiber optic --> router --> router in AP mode --> devices

4

Hello zulaman ,

Segmented networks are not officially supported within HA.

HA is designed and expects a flat subnet to work as intended.
This is because every segmented network is different for IP's and number of segments and firewalls and sharing rules and about 650495849085 other things.

This does not mean you can't use them or that they can't be made to work, it means that to get them working you are the support structure on your own subnet(s).
Consider it Advanced mode.[1]

  1. For another opinion, there is this: The enterprise smart home syndrome ↩ī¸Ž

5

So the bottom line is, unless you want to jump through a bunch of other hoops for weird reasons to make it work - you should only have ONE DHCP server. Where is it?

6

Thanks for your advice! The TPLink Wifi Router is supposed to be (and does serve as) the DHCP Server.

For some reason I can't get the Waveshare Router to just serve as an Access Point. I can disable DHCP, but I cannot seem to give it a static 192.168.1.x IP, it just times out when I change the IP.

For the time being I'll settle on option b) but I'll swap out the Waveshare to a "simple" PoE switch. Any suggestions?

7

What about the other router, does that support access point mode / bridge mode? Depending on the cabling you could potentially use the Waveshare one as the router and put the TP one in AP mode.

8

Since I can get a refund on the Waveshare Router that's my preferred option. I guess I just bought the wrong device for the job. :slight_smile: