Hi, David... Thank you for replying to my question. It is somewhat a large house. There are 10 of us in the household. There are probably 3-5 devices per person, 30 smart light switches, 3 smart vacuum cleaners, 5 wifi tvs, a fridge that has wifi, washing machine, 10 smart speakers, so the total number of wifi devices is around 90... plus we have computers and other devices plugged into the ethernet. We also have a couple of wifi printers and 3 NAS that are plugged into the ethernet. Only the main deco is configured as a router while the rest are just APs. I recently considered changing the subnet mask from 255.255.255.0 to 255.255.0.0 to increase the IP pool. But since our ISP does not allow me to configure the supplied modem/router to bridge mode, we are on double NAT; and the internet IP will be part of the new subnet. Ellen's room and Family hall are also both in wireless because I do not have ethernet in those areas. CPU load is at 8% and Memory usage at 64%.

  @gareth820 

 

You have invested a lot into Deco mesh system, it would be waste if you just replace it. Also, with the new WiFi mesh you may have same issue.

 

I have suggestions for you to try, perhaps they could stabilize your Deco mesh.

 

1. Changing subnet mask to increase the IP pool is a good idea. To avoid LAN/WAN IP address overlap, you can configure ISP modem/router to provide IP addresses from the different IP range. Most ISP routers have that setting configurable. Here are standard private IP ranges:

 

• 10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255
• 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255
• 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.255.255

 

Default Deco IP range is in 192.168.*.*, which means you can choose, for example, 172.16.1.* IP range as LAN IP addresses on your ISP router and thus remove possibility of overlap with Deco LAN addresses in the range 192.168.*.*

 

2. You can also take one step further: configure Deco mesh to run in Access Point mode. In that mode, ISP router will be responsible for IP address allocations. This will offload Main Deco and also may give you better view to your home network and more control over DHCP settings. For example, most ISP routers allow to change DHCP Lease time. With Deco mesh running in AP mode you could decrease DHCP Lease time on ISP router to 30 minutes and see if it makes the difference. 

Switching a Deco to Access Point (AP) Mode

 

When you run Deco mesh in AP mode you will not need to pass all traffic through Man Deco. You can rewire your home network so that switch connects to ISP modem/router, and Main Deco connects to the switch (or ISP router) just like any Satellite Deco. With such large network as yours, not only that will improve Main Deco performance, but that should also improve overall Deco mesh performance. For example, in Deco AP mode mobile device connected to wired Satellite Deco will send its traffic through switch directly to ISP router, not through Main Deco.

 

3. Also, when you are facing what looks like IP addresses allocation issues, it makes sense to implement the following for your devices on home network:

- For stationary devices and critical, such as NAS, configure them with static IP addresses so that they can always stay online. It is not "business critical," it is "household critical": for example, you may consider family TV a critical device, configure it with static IP address, too;

- For every mobile device at your household, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops - disable "MAC address randomization" on them for Deco SSID. This will not only make these devices utilize single IP address while on your home network, but could also improve mobile device roaming between Deco nodes.

  @gareth820 

 

... and one more thing: if you reconfigure your Deco mesh in Access Point mode, you'll have options on how to more evenly distribute clients between Deco nodes. I can discuss these options with you, but that only works with Deco running in AP mode, so let's not overload this conversation until you have Deco mesh configuration that works for you.

Hello, Alexandre... Thank you for your reply. I have not considered using the Deco Mesh as AP, perhaps I will try that approach. I have set a range for all my "server" devices like my NAS and printers to use static IPs and have reserved IPs for devices that are more or less permanently installed at home. I am frustrated with my Deco system because of the lack of configurable settings such as DHCP lease time. The UI is very sparse compared to the routers I have previously used such as Linksys and Netgear. Thanks again, I will let you guys know if things have improved.