I just purchased the Samsung SmartThings WIFI 3 pack which should be coming in about a week. My house currently has 3 wireless routers in it with different SSID’s so I’m looking to simplify things by removing them, adding these 3 devices, and have one SSID. I have CAT6 run to different rooms in my house and I was thinking it would benefit to wire each WIFI device. Are these like normal routers and AP’s where they can be wired into different networks and still broadcast the same SSID or do they have to be on the same wired network to make the mesh network work correctly?
My opinion it was waist of money, you have 3 routers, 2 of them you could convert to Access Points and have one same SSID. Answer to your question, they have to be on the same wired network to make the mesh network work correctly.
I should have mentioned the routers are all 7 years old and more and different brands so it was time for replacements. Plus my understanding is with this 3 pack one becomes a hub and I want to start using SmartThings and home automation more. I already some Samsung devices too. My network goes cable modem, firewall, L3 switches, to L2 switches in different rooms because I have CAT6 run to some. I had my rooms on different networks but may need to change that per your post. I was reading a bit on how you can change network modes on these going to Plume app. Are these in bridge mode by default? I don’t need these to be a router but more than anything I don’t want them doing NAT because I want to see all the devices real IP’s when they hit the firewall. I’m assuming bridge mode will turn off NAT.
Set the ST WiFi to bridge mode in the Plume setup and wiring the hubs together will give you stronger WiFi but they need to be wired together in series. Not from one switch. I believe.
I just did the setup tonight. The first HUB I cabled into the network, everything went well, and it automatically put it in bridge mode. The second one it made me unplug the wired connection to extend the existing WIFI. I didn’t even try to plug in the third one to the wired network. For now the second and third are using WIFI to connect back but it seems real good so far. I may look into seeing if I can hard wire in the second and third and play around with Plume some more.