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malbertone's avatar
malbertone
Aspirant
Jul 26, 2024

AX1800 EAX 15 subnet layout when used as AP or WiFi Extender

Hi,

 

i just purchased an AX1800 4-Stream WiFi 6 Mesh Extender in order to boost my WiFi signal towards the terrace to connect a camera.

The closest RJ45 socket may not be close enough to use the Extender as an AP, so that was considering the pure WiFi extender mode on the outlet closer to the terrace.

Now, since I'm using Home Assistant to keep things together including all IP devices in the home network, was trying to understand if the subnet exposed by both configurations (AP connected via cable or WiFi extender) will be the same of the main router hosting the network.

Have another AP at home and it exposes the same network of the main router (192.168.1.0/24 by default) so that never considered that as an issue, but recently i bought another extender which apparently had two IPs, one connected to the main subnet and another one on a new subnet (192.168.10.1/24) and providing via DHCP IPs on this new subnet.

While the devices were able to access internet, apparently they were not able to talk to each other, so for instance Home Assistant on main subnet was not able to connect to the camera hosted by the extender subnet.

Tried a few things like routing via the IP of the extender but no luck, so returned the extender and took the Netgear one, which is coming in a few days.

So wondering if the new subnet thing is due to the standard requiring the extender to operate on a separate network or if it was the device i took (and possibly my ignorance in configuring it).

Thanks in advance for any suggestions, will update once i get the extender in my hands

 

Cheers,

Mike

 

2 Replies

  • CrimpOn's avatar
    CrimpOn
    Guru - Experienced User
    Jul 26, 2024

    My experience with Netgear and TP-Link WiFi extenders is that devices connected to them appear as part of the router LAN subnet.  I did run into one strange phenomenon: one of the Netgear extenders creates a fake MAC address for devices connected to it, rather than pass their actual hardware MAC to the primary router.*

     

    Since I typically create IP assignments for most devices on the LAN, this meant that when these devices connect to the WiFi extender, they do not receive the desired IP assignment.  Creating a new assignment in the LAN Setup table using the pseudo MAC address solved that issue.

     

    * There is probably a technical reason for this, but I never sought an explanation.

     

    Once the EAX15 arrives, please report what happens when you use it.

     

    Thanks

     

    • malbertone's avatar
      malbertone
      Aspirant
      Jul 29, 2024

      Hi,

       

      thanks for your reply, just got the EAX15 powered up and connecte via RJ45 to the main router.

      As expected it got a main subnet's IP and once done the initial configuration as AP it started relaying the DHCP request to the main router and my mobile got internet connection and a local IP on the main subnet, with MAC and IP now associated on the router. This was the expected behavior on AP mode.

      Left the connection on the cable to allow the reconfiguration and now used the Extender option to reconfigure it

      Did not pick up the One Network option since wanted to be able to control the WiFi network i was connecting to and it was quite smooth actually, can see the same original IP was allocated to the MAC from the WiFi extender.

      Similarly the IP allocated by the main router was on the same main subnet, so it looks fine, and possibly the issue I had with the previous extender was specific to that product.

      Thanks a lot!

      Mike