how many devices can you have on wifi on a router

Owain_Moneysaver

elsien wrote: »

You may have a multitude of devices but even as a family of 5 how many are you using at the same time?

You don't need many things like Alexas and smart lightbulbs to hit a 12 device limit, and they need to be connected all the time even if they're not doing anything.

DoaM

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

Another known problem with the HomeHub 5 / Plusnet One.

Go into Advanced Settings > Wireless > 5 GHz 5 GHz Wireless Configuration and set Sync with 2.4 GHz: to NO. Put in a different SSID for the 5 GHz.

That splits the wireless into two separate settings and you probably won't hit the limit.

HH4 has/had the same issue. I did what you describe with mine.

arciere

that wrote: »

I'd go for a mesh. Last time i looked up mesh, a decent one could handle a maximum of 4 wifi streams without clashes... in the right scenario, where traditional can connect to one device at a time, after that it starts to share the channel and you will get signal clashes and may less throughput.

That's not how it works.
What you call 'wifi streams without clashes' is technically called MIMO. To put it simple, it allows simultaneous streams to/from access points provided that clients also have the same number of antennas (MIMO 2x2 means for example 2 simultaneous streams). This has nothing to do with mesh, it is how WiFi works (also 'traditional' WiFi).

In regards to the 'channel sharing', you share channels all the time because a certain channel (let's say channel 6) is not exclusive use of your own network. Other devices, completely separated from your network, may be using that same channel and this could cause 'clashes' or interference.
The way this is handled is by sending a signal before actually transmitting the data, to check if the channel is already in use. This is called CSMA/CA (carrier-sense multiple access with collision avoidance) and it happens all the time irrespective of how many devices you have in your network.

arciere

Neil_Jones wrote: »

In theory 254, since most domestic home routers will only let you have one subnet range - there are a few exceptions but that's the exception to the rule.

You can have thousands of devices in the same 'subnet range'. It depends on the subnet mask rather than how many networks you can have.

arciere

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

Another known problem with the HomeHub 5 / Plusnet One.

Go into Advanced Settings > Wireless > 5 GHz 5 GHz Wireless Configuration and set Sync with 2.4 GHz: to NO. Put in a different SSID for the 5 GHz.

That splits the wireless into two separate settings and you probably won't hit the limit.

That only adds a second SSID, it will still be part of the same network and get addresses from the same DHCP server.

Owain_Moneysaver

arciere wrote: »

That only adds a second SSID, it will still be part of the same network and get addresses from the same DHCP server.

Yes, but it overcomes a problem on this particular router when the two wifis are 'synced'.

naf123

Yes plus net routers have issues where it flips between 2.4 and 5 causing drop outs . Cutting off the 5ghz band will solve issues .

samjonas

Some home routers include a feature that allows administrators to control the number of clients that can simultaneously connect. Many Linksys routers, for example, set a default maximum of 50 maximum devices.
The limit varies on wifi routers and service providers

unforeseen

The maximum is decided by how what the firmware has been written to cope with.

For my router the maximum is 253. The firmware has been written to only access sufficient memory to hold an IP pool of that many.

Up to 64 of those IPs can be allocated to wireless devices, split across 2.4 & 5GHz bands. Again this is due to the amount of memory allocated for that information when the firmware was written.

arciere

Don't confuse DHCP scope, subnet mask and WiFi.

When you say 'maximum XX clients' you are often referring to DHCP clients. If the DHCP range is locked by the router (unlikely but possible), nothing prevents you from using your own IP addresses, you don't necessarily need to obtain them from the DHCP.

Very often there isn't a hard limit to the number of clients you can have (excluding subnets ranges for obvious reasons). Most of the time you experience performance issues rather than "50 is ok, 51 is not".