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Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
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Guest WiFIi Enhancements

Stuartofmt
Aspirant

Guest WiFIi Enhancements

I moved to Orbi having had a short fling with Google WiFi.  I did not like the administration through the cloud which did not work that well (or at all).  One thing that was near perfect on Google was the guest WiFi.   I find the current guest wifi on Orbi to be borderline at best.

Here is what Google allowed:  you can set up some (or all) of your devices on the main network.  You can set up a guest network .  You can then - selectively expose devices on the main network to the guest network.  These devices are then visible from BOTH networks.

 

This is especially useful for devices like Sonos or Printers.  With Google WiFi (and other routers)  - my houshold had access to these devices and so did guests.  Sadly not with Orbi.

 

Orbi should provide this level of flexibility.

Model: Orbi High-Performance AC3000 Tri-Band WiFi System (RBK50)
Message 1 of 7

Re: Guest WiFIi Enhancements

tbh i dont even know how thats possible as you cant be connected to both the normal ssid and guest ssid at the same time as its would cause all sorts of issues with the router seeing the same mac address twice , you may be explaining it differently to what im understanding here however

Message 2 of 7
aaz
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Re: Guest WiFIi Enhancements


@peteytesting wrote:

tbh i dont even know how thats possible as you cant be connected to both the normal ssid and guest ssid at the same time as its would cause all sorts of issues with the router seeing the same mac address twice , you may be explaining it differently to what im understanding here however


Pretty sure that last part...

He did not say that the Sono's would be connected to both guest and regular WiFi only that guests could use the Sonos that is on his regular network. It's not a common guest Wifi feature but I could see the uses for it. Instead of exposing your devices publickly, it's like a DMZ for guest access.

Message 3 of 7
st_shaw
Master

Re: Guest WiFIi Enhancements


@peteytesting wrote:

tbh i dont even know how thats possible as you cant be connected to both the normal ssid and guest ssid at the same time as its would cause all sorts of issues with the router seeing the same mac address twice , you may be explaining it differently to what im understanding here however


What the OP described is easily accomplished on other routers with VLANs and firewall rules.  You put the regular and guest networks on separate VLANs and use firewall rules to allow guest access to certain devices.

Message 4 of 7

Re: Guest WiFIi Enhancements

we arnt talking about vlans here , we are talking about wifi connectivity and you cant join 2 ssid's at once

Message 5 of 7
st_shaw
Master

Re: Guest WiFIi Enhancements


@peteytesting wrote:

we arnt talking about vlans here , we are talking about wifi connectivity and you cant join 2 ssid's at once


The OP described how Google WiFI allows device-level access control on the guest network.  You said you didn't know how it was possible.  I explained one way it could be implemented within Google WiFI--by using VLANs.

 

You seem to be assuming the Google behavior requires one device to join two SSIDs at once. Obviously that's not required, because as you pointed out, one device cannot join two SSIDs at once.

 

 

 

Message 6 of 7
Stuartofmt
Aspirant

Re: Guest WiFIi Enhancements

To be clear -- each device is connected to precisely one SSID.  In the Google example - they happen to be in the same address space.  As an example:

Sonos device is attached to SSID "Main" and exposed to SSID "Guest" as well; My phone is attached to SSID "Main".  Friends phone is attached to SSID "Guest".  Both I and Friend can connect to and control Sonos.

 

The advantage of this is that devices can selectively be made visible to both SSIDs (although only connected to one).  I cannot recall, there may be a restriction ( in the google case) that only devices on the main SSID can be exposed to Guest SSID and not vice-versa, although I suspect that would be just a UI restriction.

 

I've done this in the past with routers using OpenWrt and iptables (and gymnastics).  Google just made it easy and it would be great if netflix made Orbi behave similarly.

 

 

 

Message 7 of 7
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