Windows 11: When used on a multi-homed computer WiiM Home does not find devices

[KnowWonNose]

My computer is on ethernet and my WiiM Pro and Mini are on wifi. I recently added a wifi adapter to my computer as well solely to use with WiiM devices. Sadly if the Wifi device is not the highest priority device the WiiM Home app does not find the Wiim devices.

I set the metric for my ethernet at 5 and my wifi at 50 to prevent default traffic going over wifi which is only about 1/5th the speed I get on ethernet.

Please make the WiiM home work across multiple network devices or allow the configuration of which network devices to favor. Otherwise I love the devices and may get more.

 

[hoohoohoo]

My computer is on ethernet and my WiiM Pro and Mini are on wifi. I recently added a wifi adapter to my computer as well solely to use with WiiM devices. Sadly if the Wifi device is not the highest priority device the WiiM Home app does not find the Wiim devices.

I set the metric for my ethernet at 5 and my wifi at 50 to prevent default traffic going over wifi which is only about 1/5th the speed I get on ethernet.

Please make the WiiM home work across multiple network devices or allow the configuration of which network devices to favor. Otherwise I love the devices and may get more.

The good news is that it's fixable since many of us use mixed WiFi and wired Ethernet.

What router are you using? Are the router and WiFi separate devices or the same device?

Are the Ethernet and WiFi on the same subnet or different subnets? If they're on different subnets, that's the source of the issue because some necessary traffic isn't going between subnets.

 

[KnowWonNose]

I have EERO for the Wifi but the router part is a box running OpnSense.
The wifi is 192.168.7.x and the ethernet is 192.168.0.x

From the ethernet the EERO has a static IP I assigned it 192.168.0.95

Not really sure how to get the EEROs devices onto the same subnet.

 

[simbun]

Not really sure how to get the EEROs devices onto the same subnet.

I've never used EEROs, can you put them into bridge or AP mode?

 

[KnowWonNose]

There is a bridge mode but once I did that all of my Wifi devices were no longer able to get on the network. I will investigate it further.

 

[hoohoohoo]

I have EERO for the Wifi but the router part is a box running OpnSense.
The wifi is 192.168.7.x and the ethernet is 192.168.0.x

From the ethernet the EERO has a static IP I assigned it 192.168.0.95

Not really sure how to get the EEROs devices onto the same subnet.

Ah....OK, I have a Google WiFi mesh (5 pucks) for the house and ran into the same issue. The mesh has to be converted to a wired Ethernet at some point, so that mesh puck is the gateway for the mesh subnet and runs a NAT while all the other mesh pucks are just Layer 2 devices. all on the same WiFi subnet. Once you cross the NAT, it's a different subnet.

So thinking cap on...what to do?! I also have some Ethernet runs in the house. Internet comes into a basement space where I have a rack with routers, PoE switch, firewall and servers. Basement ceiling is a drop ceiling, so it's fairly easy to run wire to any wall and then pull wire to the needed room. I ended up doing wired runs several years ago to all the key media installations on each floor -- painful but better than WiFi for streaming media.

I use one of these Ethernet runs to my office where my WiiM Amp is located. I run power over Ethernet (PoE) to my office using a Ubiquiti PoE switch, but a single PoE-injector is OK too. I bought a couple of Ubiquiti U6-IWs [1] for my media installations. PoE powers the U6-IW to provide a 4-port wired switch and a new WiFi 2.4/5GHz. I use wired connection from the U6-IW to my WiiM Amp and use the new WiFi SSID from the U6-IW to connect while in the office and it's on the same subnet as the Amp. So, from my wired router, it's a common subnet all the way through to my phone which makes accessing media server (Plex, Emby, whatever) easy since DLNA is on the same subnet as the WiiM and my phone.

So, the end result looks like this: (edited to fix the lines)

ISP router -- my wired router -- L2 firewall -- switch -- Google WiFi Mesh (x5) -- family stuff
'............................................|
'........................................PoE switch -- wired run -- UI-6W -- wired run -- WiiM Amp
'............................................|........................|
'........................................media server.................-- UI6W WiFi -- my phone

Problem solved -- for me and I'm thrilled with it. It was expensive and needs a second WiFi, but it left my current mesh net in place for all its goodness and solved my WiiM control issue.

It may not be ideal for your case. You've come up with a good workaround for getting both WiiM and desktop on the same subnet, but it does have drawbacks in bandwidth. Since you mentioned having some mix of wired and WiFi, my setup may offer some suggestions for your case. Hope that is a decent explanation and helps

[1] https://ui.com/ca/en/wifi/in-wall

 

[KnowWonNose]

This is all something that programmatically the WiiM Home product could solve by allowing the selection the the LAN or WiFi network device. I've written code that can handle communications across all the the available networks on a computer before it's not that complicated.

 

[hoohoohoo]

This is all something that programmatically the WiiM Home product could solve by allowing the selection the the LAN or WiFi network device. I've written code that can handle communications across all the the available networks on a computer before it's not that complicated.

Another option to consider is to use MoCa over coax cable [1] to extend your network or a last option is to consider using Ethernet over Powerline [2] to extend your network to the WiiM. I've used the second successfully but it depends on how noisy your powerlines are, if you have to go across panels, how long the powerline runs are, etc. Basically both these solutions run a pair of modems across a wire (coax or your AC powerlines) and then breakout an RJ45 Ethernet on either side. If you run these into your pfSense, then the WiiM and PC are on the same subnet but your phone will be on WiFi and the multiple subnet cycle begins again -- that's why I went with the solution that I provided.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=moca+adapter
[2] https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ethernet+over+powerline+adapter

===
Back to your question -- Probably. WiiM's basic use case assumes that most home networks are simple and all devices are on the same subnet.

It would mean that the WiiM devices would have to form their own overlay network (i.e., it talks over multiple subnetworks). If you're familiar with Tailscale, it would be something like it.

Thinking about Tailscale, you could put Tailscale on your pfSense box and configured it to be your Tailscale exit node. If you got a second wifi device that the WiiM can connect to and run Tailscale on it, then the WiiM would appear to be on the same Tailscale subnet. The tricky part is finding a way to get the WiiM to route through another device, but a second wifi router running Tailscale would do the trick. YMMV.

 

[ratty]

Good grief. Just get a sensible WiFi mesh that can be put into bridge mode.

 

[simbun]

Thinking about Tailscale, you could put Tailscale on your pfSense box and configured it to be your Tailscale exit node. If you got a second wifi device that the WiiM can connect to and run Tailscale on it, then the WiiM would appear to be on the same Tailscale subnet.

I don't think mDNS (Layer 3) works over TailScale (Layer 2).

 

[hoohoohoo]

Good grief. Just get a sensible WiFi mesh that can be put into bridge mode.

I'm intrigued. What mesh product does this? And works with an upstream router?

 

[ratty]

I'm intrigued. What mesh product does this? And works with an upstream router?

Just about all of the WiFi mesh systems from the major networking suppliers can optionally operate in bridge/AP mode. Google's mesh happens to be one that can't, unless there's only a single node (so not a mesh as such). There may be others.

 

[hoohoohoo]

Just about all of the WiFi mesh systems from the major networking suppliers can optionally operate in bridge/AP mode. Google's mesh happens to be one that can't, unless there's only a single node (so not a mesh as such). There may be others.

I see that the eero does. My head was in the Google mesh solution -- thanks for the insight!