Do You Keep Your Home Network on One Subnet?

[Unison]

Most home networks start with everything on the same subnet: PCs, phones, smart TVs, cameras and other smart devices. It’s simple to manage, but I’ve been wondering when it becomes worth separating devices onto different networks or VLANs.

Has anyone done this at home? What did you separate, and did it make troubleshooting harder?

 

[Janobi]

The majority of you home networks will be using the 192.168.0.x/24 range, but you can use any of the private addressing you want. You could even split that /24 into 2x /25 networks. Or if you're doing some stuff you don't want people seeing, then split the subnet, and send half over Tor.

For you to be able to split it properly, then you're going to need a switch of some description, that supports VLANs (Virtual Lan's), so you can put ports into vlans, and then devices in that VLAN the taffic is separate from the other traffic.

I've not done it at home, but i've setup enough networks to know how to do it if you want help. Troubleshooting is no different to normal troubleshooting

 

[Unison]

The majority of you home networks will be using the 192.168.0.x/24 range, but you can use any of the private addressing you want. You could even split that /24 into 2x /25 networks. Or if you're doing some stuff you don't want people seeing, then split the subnet, and send half over Tor.

For you to be able to split it properly, then you're going to need a switch of some description, that supports VLANs (Virtual Lan's), so you can put ports into vlans, and then devices in that VLAN the taffic is separate from the other traffic.

I've not done it at home, but i've setup enough networks to know how to do it if you want help. Troubleshooting is no different to normal troubleshooting

Interesting idea. At the moment I’m using a Virgin Media Hub and an unmanaged TP-Link switch, so everything is on the same home network. My Pi servers and music devices need to talk to each other, and it’s all working well, so I’m leaving it as it is for now.

I might look into separating the smart devices one day, but I’d need a router and switch that support VLANs first.

 

[Shabbaranks]

Im running 3 mesh deco x20's best things I ever bought. They allow 3 different separate or integrated networks and also allows you to split the frequencies. So I run my main network on the primary and stuff which requires 2.4ghz on the iot network with the guest currently disabled.

 

[Janobi]

Interesting idea. At the moment I’m using a Virgin Media Hub and an unmanaged TP-Link switch, so everything is on the same home network. My Pi servers and music devices need to talk to each other, and it’s all working well, so I’m leaving it as it is for now.

I might look into separating the smart devices one day, but I’d need a router and switch that support VLANs first.

You wouldn't need a router, just a switch. You can just point all the traffic to the router for external access. It would be your default gateway for traffic.

As Shabba has said you can also get AP's like Deco's for a mesh network and set it up that way.

 

[Unison]

You wouldn't need a router, just a switch. You can just point all the traffic to the router for external access. It would be your default gateway for traffic.

As Shabba has said you can also get AP's like Deco's for a mesh network and set it up that way.

Thanks, I see what you mean. I wouldn’t necessarily need to replace the Virgin Hub if a Layer 3 switch handled the routing between VLANs and used the Hub for internet access. I was thinking of a basic managed switch, which wouldn’t do that on its own.

The Deco guest or IoT network is another option worth looking at. For now, everything that needs to talk to my Pi servers is working, so I’m happy to leave the setup as it is. And do more reading up.