Recommendations for a private Wi-Fi and Internet based Wi-Fi

On Apr 18, 2025, at 4:47 AM, 'jastan...@proton.me' via QLab <ql...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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gar...@compositelight.com

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Apr 18, 2025, 3:54:03 PM4/18/25

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Mark, I don’t have any specific product recommendation, but what I think you’re looking for is a router (not an access point) with “WiFi-as-WAN” as a feature. This will allow you to connect the router to the house network - with a wired connection ideally (pretty much all routers will do this) or by connecting the router to house WiFi (likely more practical in your use case). This will mean your own WiFi network, provided by the router, will be private and dedicated for NDI and OSC purposes, but your devices can still access the internet as needed. There are plenty of gaming routers out there that have this feature, along with high speed WiFi* which may be better suited to NDI.

* limited to the capability of your devices.

Gareth

nizer

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Apr 21, 2025, 5:26:43 PM4/21/25

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After playing around with settings and network stuff I found I had 51 "Other Services" listed in my Network panel. Including lots of Arduino Feather 32u's and lots of other stuff, often multiples of the same device. I appears every time I connect to these it adds another instance. Would this be the cause of my terrible network slow down? Do I need these to appear in my Network Other Services window. When I delete them it gives me the option to have them not appear again. But I do use them in my show just not thru WIFI or Ethernet.

Sam Kusnetz

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Apr 22, 2025, 8:41:43 AM4/22/25

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On Apr 21, 2025 at 5:26:42 PM, nizer <ma...@nizer.com> wrote:

After playing around with settings and network stuff I found I had 51 "Other Services" listed in my Network panel. Including lots of Arduino Feather 32u's and lots of other stuff, often multiples of the same device. I appears every time I connect to these it adds another instance. Would this be the cause of my terrible network slow down?

Not likely, but not impossible.

Do I need these to appear in my Network Other Services window. When I delete them it gives me the option to have them not appear again.

You can delete them and tell them not to come back, no problem.

But I do use them in my show just not thru WIFI or Ethernet.

They appear because they present a serial port to the Mac, which you could use for network communication so the Mac presents them there for you. But deleting them from that space doesn’t prevent you from doing anything non-network related with them.

Best

Sam

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Mark Nizer/Neisser

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Apr 22, 2025, 10:59:49 AM4/22/25

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Is serial or Bluetooth considered network related?

Mark Nizer/Neisser

https://docs.ndi.video/all/getting-started/white-paper/nic-selection

On Apr 22, 2025, at 8:41 AM, Sam Kusnetz <s...@figure53.com> wrote:

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Gareth Risdale

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Apr 22, 2025, 11:25:51 AM4/22/25

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Mark,

Based on what you’ve said so far the first thing to eliminate (in my opinion anyway) is the multiple NIC setup you’ve described. This is a well known problem with NDI and something I have personally encountered many times with OBS and VMix.

As recently as two weeks ago I had an exhibition stand that was sending NDI screen capture from a PC to a Mac running Millumin. It had been fine for days, then Millumin started intermittently crashing. The cause was that someone had connected the Mac to the venue WiFi to transfer some files.

For a long time it’s been a golden rule of NDI that you only enable one network adapter on a system receiving or transmitting NDI. Since NDI5 they enabled NIC selection, so if you want to you can specify which network adapter to use, but personally I just stick to the one network adapter rule.

If you have not setup a preferred NIC, NDI will just do its own thing on auto, and this always seems to cause problems - either major frame drop at best or crashes at worst. In their words: “…the operation of computer systems that are separately on entirely different networks with different IP address ranges is often not handled robustly by the operating system, and NDI might not fully function in these configurations.”

So, before you start looking at other network service settings, I would urge you to either simplify everything down to a single network via a dedicated router, accessing the internet via WAN connection (as described above), or you could try specifying the NIC for NDI on your Mac. This is explained here:

“In MacOS and Linux, the NIC Selection can be manually added in the NDI configuration file located in the home directory of the effective user: ‘ndi-config.v1.json’”

Also, have you seen this thread, and could your crashing issue be related…? :

https://groups.google.com/g/qlab/c/PKS18tM52fE

Cheers,

Gareth

On 22 Apr 2025, at 15:59, Mark Nizer/Neisser <freeun...@gmail.com> wrote:

Is serial or Bluetooth considered network related?

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/qlab/E1D0ABFE-52AF-40CB-917B-F66855F33C2F%40gmail.com.

John Huntington

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Apr 23, 2025, 1:20:15 PM4/23/25

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On Tuesday, April 22, 2025 at 11:25:51 AM UTC-4 gar...wrote:

Based on what you’ve said so far the first thing to eliminate (in my opinion anyway) is the multiple NIC setup you’ve described. This is a well known problem with NDI and something I have personally encountered many times with OBS and VMix.
As recently as two weeks ago I had an exhibition stand that was sending NDI screen capture from a PC to a Mac running Millumin. It had been fine for days, then Millumin started intermittently crashing. The cause was that someone had connected the Mac to the venue WiFi to transfer some files.

This is fascinating, I don't have a whole lot of experience with NDI but have successfully run many machines (mostly PCs) with multiple network adapters, sometimes three or four at once for various reasons. I'm wondering if this issue you're describing (not necessarily Mark's issue) is caused by having multiple router addresses configured (default gateways in Windows parlance)?

This definitely causes a lot of network problems, and I've seen that symptom specifically with a working system that gets connected to wifi and starts acting weird. If you ever see that situation again, I'd love to see the IFCONFIG results. My mac is packed up or I'd test it myself.

Thanks!

John

Mark Nizer/Neisser

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Apr 23, 2025, 1:49:05 PM4/23/25

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This entire thread and conversation is absolutely fascinating! I am just finishing up another project and I’m gonna deep dive on this starting Friday

Mark Nizer/Neisser

On Apr 23, 2025, at 1:20 PM, John Huntington <jch3ny...@gmail.com> wrote:

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nizer

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Apr 27, 2025, 5:32:04 AM4/27/25

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I finally had time to implement the ideas here. @John Huntington I have had consistent problems with QLab grinding to a crawl with my old set up. The new one (using the advice graciously provided here) has the Mac's WiFi turned off and all of it is controlled by a dual band router. A 5G network on the LAN, just for NDI video and a 2.4 network for regular network stuff (Lemur, MIDI, Internet, etc), the 2.4 network (chosen for range, over speed) can access the internet via selecting a WiFi network via the admin interface and using the repeater feature that only uses the 2.4 network. VERY HOPEFUL this will solve my issue. Thoughts?

BTW John how to do I access the IFCONFIG results to send you. I can recreate this issue pretty easily by running a router LAN and then turning on Mac WiFi and joining an external network. I soon get a QLab not responding and the rainbow wheel of death. The app technically doesn't crash it just grinds to a halt.

John Huntington

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Apr 28, 2025, 10:05:21 AM4/28/25

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On Sun, Apr 27, 2025 at 5:32 AM nizer <ma...@nizer.com> wrote:
> BTW John how to do I access the IFCONFIG results to send you. I can recreate this issue pretty easily by running a router LAN and then turning on Mac WiFi and joining an external network. I soon get a QLab not responding and the rainbow wheel of death. The app technically doesn't crash it just grinds to a halt.

If you go to the macOS terminal and just type "ifconfig". You're
going to get pages of intereface details (if anyone knows how to
narrow the results to physical interfaces only please let me know,
I've searched before and haven't found anything). If you look through
in there you'll find the interfaces and can look for the router
address(es).

John

nizer

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Apr 28, 2025, 10:27:08 AM4/28/25

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So after a couple days of messing with my new router and its dual band capabilities, I was able to get my issue resolved! Qlab is purring like a baby kitten and I’ve had no issues with the spinning rainbow ball of death. I’m gonna do a bunch of tests and see if I can re-create the issue I had. But right now I have the built-in Mac Wi-Fi turned off and am using the router to create a dual network, one 5G and one 2.4G and having the Internet come in ONLY to the 2.4g side via a repeater option where it is joining a nearby Wi-Fi hotspot.

Gareth Risdale

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Apr 28, 2025, 10:45:47 AM4/28/25

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John,

Does this work for you (paste as a single chunk into Terminal)?

networksetup -listallhardwareports | awk '

/Hardware Port/ { port=$3; for (i=4; i<=NF; i++) port=port " " $i }

/Device/ { device=$2; print port "|" device }

' | while IFS="|" read -r port device; do

ip=$(ipconfig getifaddr "$device" 2>/dev/null)

router=$(ipconfig getoption "$device" router 2>/dev/null)

if [ -n "$ip" ]; then

echo "$port ($device):"

echo " IP Address: $ip"

echo " Router: ${router:-N/A}"

echo

fi

done

Gareth

John Huntington

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Apr 28, 2025, 10:50:01 AM4/28/25

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Interesting! I'm afraid my mac is in storage at the moment and I
can't test it but that looks interesting.

They should really have a command line flag to limit the results.

PC (with IP config) doesn't show all the virtual interfaces unless you
go looking for it.

John

Gareth Risdale

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Apr 28, 2025, 11:11:02 AM4/28/25

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Mark,

Really glad you got this sorted. The only thing I would point out is that, depending on what your “repeater” option means, you might find that your 2.4g network is subject to the hot-spots’ fire-wall. Probably not an issue in the majority of cases, but if it was locked down for local traffic it might block a port you’re relying on for OSC etc. This is more likely something to encounter with corporate guest networks, so maybe not worth going out and buying a new router, but something to be aware of if you find things won’t talk to each other somewhere.

The other advantage of using wifi-as-WAN rather than repeating an existing access point is that you’re in control of your IP addressing, so you’re not going to come into conflict with the hot-spot's DHCP server. You could reserve addresses for your props etc, so they’re always the same, and definitely not clashing with a printer or some other device on the network.

Best wishes,
Gareth

nizer

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Apr 28, 2025, 5:32:24 PM4/28/25

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First off, having QLab be "peppy" again feels SOOOO good. I am so relieved to have an answer to my slowness and hangs. I don't have to have internet. I only need it for one part of the show and if for some reason that couldn't happen it wouldn't be the end of the world. The biggest thing is to not have QLab slow down and my NDI camera working. Even AppleScript was grinding to a halt before. For OSC I usually plug in a ethernet dongle and join their network via DHCP directly. I have done that a ton and don't know if that would cause the old issue to come back. For me it was when I had the router running and the Mac's built in WiFi also connected.

I hate be be ignorant, but can you explain a little bit more about "wifi-as-WAN"? Currently I have my LAN with all items I use with reserved addresses assigned to them. Glad to keep learning and expanding my tool kit.

Gareth Risdale

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May 2, 2025, 6:41:34 AM5/2/25

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Mark,

I can visualise an explanation in my head, but actually explaining it in words is apparently harder! So here’s a likely-semi-accurate, hopefully-non-patronising, non-network engineer’s explanation (feat. a sketchy analogy).

The very short version is: “WiFi as WAN” is just the same as connecting your LAN to a WAN with a cable, but you do it wirelessly instead.

To understand what that actually means, you need to first have an understanding of what a WAN is in a network setup.

Every managed network or Local Area Network (LAN) has something doing the “managing”, like a router or a managed switch (you can have an unmanaged network, but ignore that for now). It also, optionally, has a connection to another network - or a Wide Area Network (WAN). A WAN is essentially another network that your network is connected to.

Take a typical internet setup at home: You have a connection to the internet that comes in at a single point into your router. This is your router’s gateway to the internet - which is itself a big network.

Your router will have an “external IP”. That is your home’s address on the WAN it is connected to (possibly the actual internet or more likely your ISP’s network, which is itself connected to the internet).

Then you have devices that connect to your router (either via cables or WiFi - doesn’t matter). Each one is assigned a local IP address in order to talk to the router and other devices on the network. Devices cannot share a local IP - they must be unique. The local IP is normally assigned automatically by Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP). This is where the router hands out IP addresses to devices as they connect.

So far this is heavy on technical speak, so let’s hit the analogy button:

Let’s say a network is a hotel.

When you arrive at the hotel (connect to the network) you need to speak to the receptionist to be assigned a room to stay in.

The receptionist’s desk is at “Room 192.168.1.1” (this is a common default router IP, but there are others).

The first guest to arrive gets “Room 192.168.1.2” (the next available address)

The second guest gets “Room 192.168.1.3”.

And so on.

Once the first guest checks out (disconnects from the network for more than a given period of time) their room becomes available again. So then the next guest to arrive is given “Room 192.168.1.2”.

If guest one walks back into the hotel, they get given the next available room - not necessarily the room they had last time.

Note: Your router can be set to reserve IP addresses for specific devices (identified by their MAC address). This is like the hotel receptionist saying “this specific room is only for guest A Smith, so only they will ever be given that room”.

Now, you can turn off DHCP on your device and set a manual IP address. This is like walking into the hotel, ignoring the reception desk, and saying “I’m heading room 192.168.1.25 - deal with it!” Which might be absolutely fine.

Unless…

A) That room is already in use (another device has already been assigned that IP, so now two devices are on the same IP causing instability or connection failure).

B) That room doesn’t exist in the hotel (the network’s preset range of available IP addresses doesn’t include the one you chose manually).

C) That room wasn’t in use when you arrived, but subsequently an audience load of people arrived at the hotel and the receptionist just started handing out rooms and didn’t know you had taken that room… (so back to instability and failure).

So generally it’s easier to use DHCP so that you reliably get a “good” IP and can be confident that it won’t be given to anything else.

However, there are reasons why having a manual IP is helpful. Like if you have a prop that receives OSC commands on the network, but doesn’t have any kind of display. How do you know what IP it was assigned today? Much easier if it’s always at the same address, so your cues are always pointing at the same place. If you control the network (own the hotel) this is no problem - you can go into the settings and reserve that IP for that prop, or set the DHCP range to be outside of that address - this is like telling the receptionist “Never give out this floor of rooms to anyone - and don’t ask me why”. If you take either of these steps nothing else will accidentally be assigned your prop’s IP via DHCP - all good. But… If you don’t control the network you cannot do that. So you’re back to hoping that “room in the hotel” happens to exist and be available, and doesn’t subsequently get handed out to someone else.

Another consideration is the network’s security settings. Often these are fairly open, but not always. This is like the hotel having rules.

If you turn up to the hotel and want to pay cash in USD, but the hotel only accepts Euros, you have a problem.

Similarly, if you connect to a network and are hoping to send OSC commands on port 53000, but the network is set to block port 53000 (or more likely is set to only allow specific set of ports that doesn’t include 53000) you have a problem. Normal web browsing only uses ports 80 or 443, so it’s not uncommon for networks to be locked down to only allow these ports to be used.

If you own the hotel, you make the rules, and the rules will always be the same. Port 53000 will always be available for use.

Quick point on the internet: Let’s say you’re sat in your hotel room and you want to send a letter to someone else out in the world. You take your letter to the receptionist and give it to them. They look at it, read the address, realise it’s outside the hotel and so put it in the outgoing mail to be collected by the postal service. This is like the network identifying traffic meant for the internet and sending it to the WAN. We’ll come back to this.

So, let’s say you want to have the benefits of managing the network (owning the hotel) so your devices all work the same everywhere you go, but you need to use a venue internet connection, which is always a different network. What you ideally do in this case is take your router with you to the venue, and then use the venue as your WAN.

In this scenario your router is the “guest” in the venue hotel. It gets given a room - let’s say it’s room “10.0.2.250” (that’s the actual IP a guest network has me on this very second). Your router checks into the room, and then performs a magic trick that frankly stretches this analogy beyond breaking point: It opens a hotel inside the venue hotel room. You own this hotel within the hotel, so you decide who is connected, which IPs are given to whom, and what the hotel rules are. But, your hotel (router) is also a guest inside the venue’s hotel so you can connect to the internet… When a guest in your hotel wants to send a letter, it takes it to your hotel’s reception. It then gets sent to the WAN - the venue hotel. At that point it gets taken to the venue hotel reception which keeps sending it up the chain and off to the internet.

Important side issue to note, your whole network is connected to the venue’s network as a single shared connection (you only have one room in the hotel), so beware that some networks enforce per-client rate limiting. Even if you’re connected to a guest network with massive overall capacity that can give good speeds to 500 devices at once, you’re only getting one connection’s worth.

Most common routers have a physical RJ45 port labelled as WAN - it’s often a different colour to the others. Some routers have special “high capacity” WAN ports - to enable more bandwidth to share with the many devices connected. So that’s fine if the venue you’re visiting can give you a wired connection, but what if they can’t, or the socket on the wall is the other side of a theatre and you didn’t bring a 300ft cable? That’s when you could benefit from a less common feature called WiFi-as-WAN (or might be called “Wireless WAN” or “Client Mode” or something else along those lines). This is the same as plugging in cable to the WAN port, but wireless for convenience.

Circling back around to Mark’s setup, another option is to “repeat” or “extend” a venue network. This has some convenience benefits - your devices all connect to a known SSID so you don’t need to give everything a new WiFi password etc, BUT depending on how it’s setup, you may not be “running the hotel”. This means DHCP might be coming from the network you’re extending - along with the hotel rules. So the potential pitfalls above come into play. Different manufacturers use different terminology for these kinds of setup, so it’s worth understand what your kit actually means when it says things like “extend”.

Hope that makes any sense at all - this ended up a lot longer than intended. Needless to say, someone with networking expertise may have a lot of nuance and detail to add to the above.

Depending on how your gear is setup, you could already be in a good place, but it’s sound advice (metaphorically and literally) to beware bad hotels.

The Fox Hotel, Wolverhampton, is an example that springs to mind (sadly not metaphorically).

Best wishes,

Gareth

Shaun Jay

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May 2, 2025, 12:08:56 PM5/2/25

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I'm not familiar with WAPs but is this basically a router that can give you your own private network to use with QLab?

Mark Nizer/Neisser

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May 2, 2025, 2:58:33 PM5/2/25

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Yes.

Mark Nizer/Neisser