As I’m in the beginning steps of sorting out my homelab, I’m starting to ask questions I haven’t asked before and come across conundrums I hadn’t considered previously. One of which is how to sort out pi-hole given that my ISP has locked down the router tighter than a tight thing.
As I had been reading about and watching YouTube videos, I had stumbled across Tailscale and the idea of VLANs is a nice one. That coupled with wanting to block ads and a new router seemed to the optimal choice.
Another thing is that I eventually want to get a Reolink POE video doorbell and Reolink E1 outdoor camera for my garden and so I’m trying to think somewhat ahead as the last thing I want is a server rack in my house. Aesthetically speaking.
So I stumbled across all the recommendations for Mikrotik and they’re really reasonably priced, especially compared to the Netgear Nighthawk thing I was looking at for ten times the price.
The Mikrotik HAP AX Lite is reasonably priced, does all the cool new stuff, let’s me set up virtual local area networks, has room for growth and has PoE capabilities. It seems to be the perfect choice. But is it? Because it seems almost too good to be true.
Mikrotik HAP AX Lite
Looks like it’s 2.4ghz only, which is really odd. Mikrotik is also really difficult to configure in my experience.
Typically a better setup is a dedicated router, and at least 1 dedicated WiFi AP, that way you’ve separated the 2 and can upgrade one without the other as technology evolves. TP-Link Omada APs are decent, as are Unifi.
One of which is how to sort out pi-hole given that my ISP has locked down the router tighter than a tight thing.
Easy way in that case is use Pihole for DHCP and DNS together. Assuming you can disable DHCP on your router.