Simple home networking for beginner

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My internet is ATTs 5G with their “All-Fi” CGW450 gateway

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I read lots of problems with specific ATT gateways and pass through setup. I’ve never personally had a problem, but I’ve never had this l gateway specifically. So it may be worth googling (and I hate to mention the site, but Reddit is actually usually one of the more useful places to pull up old threads with specific problems you’ll probably encounter).

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Is troubleshooting, tuning accomplished with the controller apps that TP Link and others offer? Can I do what I want with a TP Link router, gateway in pass thru, a large enough switch, and compatible APs?

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I did read the whole thing, but this seems to be the question/point worth addressing.


There are pretty much two options for ceiling/wall mount PoE, decent-looking home networking gear- TP-Link’s Omada and Ubiquiti Unifi. Are there actually others? Yes.

I have had, at one time or another just about every combination of unifi AP with:
- Unifi hardware controller vs software controller
- Unifi gateway vs 3rd party gateway
- unmanaged 3rd party switch vs managed Unifi switch (throwing it out there. People who call every Unifi switch overpriced don’t know the utility of the 5-port PoE-PD Flex Mini at $30. The rest are indeed not particularly fantastic value, and there’s a lot to be said about the oddly limited way they can subnet/VLAN (specifically by port and not by MAC despite offering the latter on their non-Unifi hardware), but they certainly aren’t bad and certainly CAN be useful)

They’re extremely stable. I had to power cycle everything this week during a weird power outage (power flickered. About half the hardwired devices power cycled). My USG was on, the light was blue. But when I looked in the controller, I had no WAN configured and the controller didn’t see the USG. I had to power cycle the Unifi Gateway before everything came back on. It was somewhat unusual (the blue light basically indicates, “all good, I’m adopted and working”). Almost no other time have I needed to troubleshoot anything other than new/changing configurations (static IP got changed by ISP without notifying me at one point, the first time I created VLANs and played with traffic isolation vs allowing specific stuff to cross, site to site VPN and traffic filtering. Things like handoff? No problem).

I have limited experience with the Omada stuff
I have posted about it before, but the short:
Father in law buys house they had Omada APs and 4-port PoE switch. I bought their gateway but not their controller. I could not make handoff and shared SSID function with internet access. I took that stuff out, put in Unifi stuff because I’m lazy and wanted to be able to troubleshoot from one app across multiple sites, and it works great.
I explained that I didn’t buy the controller to my buddy, gave him the Omada hardware, he bought their hardware controller, and it has worked like no problem. I believe he has bought Omada gear in 2-3 more setups.


So, I think they are both good. I know that partial Unifi stuff plays very nice with 3rd party gear in the chain. I personally struggled with getting Omada configured when not using their hardware controller (I had the software one, neither with the computer or phone could I get it to function). Buddy had same struggle as I understand it that was solved with buying the right piece.



If I were you, I’d change the SSID on one of your networks. If the problem goes away, you’re already partially in on Omada gear. I remember it being slightly cheaper. I would just build the stack from there. If the problem doesn’t go away, I didn’t have luck with Omada and spent a few hours changing configurations and reading but just couldn’t make it work without all the pieces. There’s a good chance I’m wrong. My buddy doesn’t post here but still recommends Omada (with all the pieces rather than just APs with a network controller on an unmanaged PoE switch, though admittedly that piece was already in place so it’s more about the gateway + controller more than likely, but we never attempted it without their switch to confirm and have no real need/desire to).



Experience from me is limited, but that’s what I can share.

One thing to note about Unifi and TPlink. TPlink's Omada is a single setup point like Ubiquiti's, however with TPlink all their devices can be set up absent of the Omada controller. Ubiquiti you are required to have a controller on the network.

I've personally switched to TPlink instead of ubiquiti because I did not like running the.controller and had issues with the pairing on Ubiquiti. The TPlink devices have a bit of a learning curve to understand, but its not too bad if you want to build your knowledge up over time.

You technically can set up ubiquiti APs without a dedicated controller. It requires essentially running the controller software on your computer. But doesn't have to be kept online

You lose ease of setup. The controllers allow for a bit simpler vlan configs on your devices. If you are not planning to run vlans you don't gain anything.

Didn't know about that but it makes sense for it to at least be an optional feature

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TPlink's Omada

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I just upgraded to two 670's, would highly recommend to others as well