Keep Hold Of Your Old Router - This Free Life Hack Prevents Real Hacks
When it comes time to upgrade your WiFi router don’t throw your old one away just yet. You may have outgrown your old router for all your streaming devices but chances are there is still some life left in it and with a little tweaking and adjustments you will be able to make your new WiFi network run even faster if you breathe some new life into that old device. Not only can you use it as a backup if something goes wrong, but you can use it as a separate network for all your Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Having a separate network for your IoT devices is a great way to keep your home secure. By creating a separate network, you can ensure that all your IoT devices are isolated from your main network, preventing any malicious actors from accessing them. This is especially important if you have any smart home devices, as these can be vulnerable to hacking and exploits. In a previous article, I explain why it’s important to segregate the IoT devices from your main network so this article is going to cover a great way to do just that and it isn’t going to cost you any money.
Setting up a separate network for your IoT devices is relatively straightforward. All you need to do is connect your old router to your new one and then configure it to create a separate network for your IoT devices. Before doing this you will need to turn your old WiFi router into Access Point (AP) mode so you don’t have 2x devices on the network trying to direct traffic. But what is an even better move is to upgrade the old router’s software first to a 3rd party software. Most routers have had their features handicapped by the router manufacturer and installing software like OpenWRT onto your old router will unlock a lot more security options and often this software improves the performance of old routers at the same time.
The great thing about running a dedicated WiFi network just for your IoT devices is that you can just keep adding devices onto that network without your WiFi ever slowing down. Sometimes configuring IoT devices that don’t have a screen is a nuisance so having one network that holds all the devices means if you ever want to change your primary WiFi password it won’t kick the IoT devices off the network. Another advantage is when you change your primary router in the future all your IoT devices can stay connected to that network. With people using more smart home devices it’s easy to think that you have to reconnect up to a dozen smart devices when you change the network settings.
My house has about a dozen smart home devices including smart switches, smart thermostats, smart lights, and smart appliances, should I ever sell the house in the future I’ll just give the person the old router that has all the devices already connected so they won’t have to pull things out of the wall to reconnect them to a network. Yes, I will have to transfer the ownership of the device via email but they won’t have to go through the house trying to configure devices.
Other than the added security and convenience of having a dedicated IoT network you also get to have improved performance of both networks. IoT devices tend to slow networks down on some routers so the more smart doorbells, smart speakers, and smart light switches you add to a network the slower the entire network gets. This isn’t normally an issue with WiFi6 routers but it eliminates the possibility altogether if you use a separate WiFi AP network altogether.
If you do decide to do this there are heaps of tutorials on YouTube explaining how to set up OpenWRT on an old router but make sure you do these 3 things:
- 1 - Make sure the channels of your WiFi are different, WiFi networks communicate on channels just like radio stations, if they are set to the same channel bands you will get terrible performance from both devices.
- 2 - Make sure you move the routers at least a couple of meters away from each other. Even though they are communicating on different channels they are both trying to transmit information. Run an ethernet cable to the other AP and put it somewhere else, the further way the better. Remember this is an AP for IoT devices so they don’t need huge speeds so it isn’t too bad if they aren’t in the optimum location.
- 3 - Always keep routers away from microwaves. A WiFi router transmits a radio frequency that is on the 2.4 GHz spectrum and outputs less than 1 watts of power but it’s more likely to be transmitting about 0.2 watts. A microwave cooks food by generating about 1200 watts of energy in the form of microwave energy inside the 2.4 GHz spectrum.
So feel free to use this life hack to prevent real hackers from compromising your network, also feel good about upcycling old equipment by breathing some life into that old router while simultaneously improving the performance and security of your WiFi network.
