Smart WiFi plugs

Strider590

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Mine works faultlessly. I use it when I'm away from home for an extended period to remotely reset a low power device that periodically screws up.

Just because you can't think of a use doesn't mean there isn't one.

Something that you need when your not at home?

I mean I can relate in a way, my router and modem are on a timer, so I get a new IP every 2 days. But what could you possibly need that wouldn't be just as happy on a £3 timer socket?

I'm failing to see how these WiFi sockets have any practical use.

Do they actually work on WAN (the internet outside your home network)?
If so how is the port forwarding set up on the router?

What about subnet masks? (essential for sending WAN packets to a specific device on a LAN network).

I assume the socket needs a static IP address?

If so then does the average home router have enough IP addresses in it's DHCP pool to cope with this AND PC/laptop/tablet/iPhone ( X the number of people at the residence)?

What would be to stop somebody using this WAN access to take control of the device and cause it to overload through rapid repeated switching?




From the point of view that I have "wake on lan" for my PC, it took several days to get it working from outside my home network and even now it's temperamental.

Of course if it doesn't work on WAN, then normal remote sockets would be more convenient (as someone mentions above)..

AndyPix

Strider590 wrote: »

If so then does the average home router have enough IP addresses in it's DHCP pool to cope with this AND PC/laptop/tablet/iPhone ( X the number of people at the residence)?

If its /24 (which it will be) then its 255 devices (ip addresses)

The theoretical upper limit if you know about networking is 65,535

Im surprised you don't know this if you are talking about networking in the way that you are

Andy

AndyPix

Strider590 wrote: »

What about subnet masks? (essential for sending WAN packets to a specific device on a LAN network).

Where would subnet masks come into it ?

If using a port forward then you just need the external ip of the router.

And when setting up the forward on the internal network it would be the default mask for that network ie 255.255.255.0

Confusing the OP for no reason

kwikbreaks

They are cloud devices. No need for any port forwarding. Of course if the support server fails so do they so I'd rather they were conventional devices that just needed a port forwarding to them as I do have a fixed IP so don't need to worry on that score.

Strider590 wrote: »

Something that you need when your not at home?

I have stuff uploading data to a website. It's not essential by any means but I do get emails if the data is out of date so I prefer to keep things running and restart them if they fail. I spend long periods away from home in the summer.

Strider590

AndyPix wrote: »

If its /24 (which it will be) then its 255 devices (ip addresses)

The theoretical upper limit if you know about networking is 65,535

Im surprised you don't know this if you are talking about networking in the way that you are

Andy

Home routers supplied by ISPs often have a limited DHCP range. For example the BT home hub 2 had a hard limit of 6 IP addresses, you couldn't change it even if you tried, the firmware would just throw back an error.
The HH3 had a thing with setting up static IPs, if the MAC had an IP in the lease table, you could not attach a different IP, but you equally could not attach the IP it currently had, because it was already in use. The killer was the fact that the set up of static IPs was done my selecting a tick box next to the device in a currently connected device list.
In short it was royal PITA.

My GFs old Virgin router had a similar limitation on the DHCP pool.

I'm fairly convinced they do it to stop people sharing internet connections in the flats/etc.

kwikbreaks

ballyblack wrote: »

what make/model are you using??

Sorry I missed that post. I have an Orvibo S20 - same as in the Amazon link. Mine cost £17.49 delivered on eBay at the time so the Amazon price looks good.

kwikbreaks

Strider590 wrote: »

Home routers supplied by ISPs often have a limited DHCP range.

I've never come across that but I don't use ISP routers so maybe that's why.

Luckily though as I mentioned earlier there is no need at all for any port forwarding or fixed IPs either on the LAN or WAN with the ones linked to as they are cloud devices and use an intermediate server for both communication and security.

AndyPix

kwikbreaks wrote: »

they are cloud devices

Do you mean they use their own 3g connection and not the home wifi ?

AndyPix

Strider590 wrote: »

Home routers supplied by ISPs often have a limited DHCP range. For example the BT home hub 2 had a hard limit of 6 IP addresses, you couldn't change it even if you tried, the firmware would just throw back an error.
The HH3 had a thing with setting up static IPs, if the MAC had an IP in the lease table, you could not attach a different IP, but you equally could not attach the IP it currently had, because it was already in use. The killer was the fact that the set up of static IPs was done my selecting a tick box next to the device in a currently connected device list.
In short it was royal PITA.

My GFs old Virgin router had a similar limitation on the DHCP pool.

I'm fairly convinced they do it to stop people sharing internet connections in the flats/etc.

Total rubbish

For example .. My BT HH2 has 17 devices connected to it right now

AndyPix

From the BT website :-

Is there a maximum number of connections? Do wired connections (ethernet) get priority over wireless connections? Basically, how is our BB capacity shared-out by the homehub? Try as I might, I'm struggling to find any detail on this.

Ethernet will generally give better performance. There is no limit on connections