So I have had a ton of requests over the years to give a tour of my home network. Not only
are computers and technology my day job, but their are also a big part of my hobbyist adventures
in addition to making things in workshop. And that means my home network is pretty advanced
compared to the average home user.
My Internet Connection Let’s start outside at the demarcation point.
I get my Internet service from Frontier Communications. They recently bought out Verizon FiOS in Texas
so this is basically the same service as Verizon offers in other states. My ONT or Optical
Network Terminal is connected using the copper port via Gigabit ethernet. I currently have
my service provisioned as 150 megabit symmetrical, though they do offer up to 500 megabit. I
am just not willing to pay their outrageous prices for it. It’s a shame because just
two streets away AT&T is offering Gigabit services for less than I pay these guys for
150 megabit.
My Network and A/V Closet When we built our home, we had the builder
create a dedicated closet for the theater room’s AV gear and my home network gear.
I’ve never been really happy with this panel they put in the house, and at some point I
will probably eliminate it and put in a real patch panel, but for now this has to suffice.
Over hear on the right is my main network gear. It’s just a little wall mount rack
I got from Amazon. In fact, I will put a link in the description and on my website where
to buy all of this gear if you are interested.
The firewall I am using is a six port unit that I personally imported from China. It’s
something I am actually considering importing in bulk and selling on my website. It has
six gigabit ports and I am currently running pfSense on it.
Below that is a 24 port managed switch that I used as my main distribution switch. Under
that is a a 50 port managed switch that supports PoE or Power over Ethernet. This switch runs
all of the cameras for my NVR which is a little Synology NVR216 that just sits on top of the
rack. I have a whole video on installing this rack.
Down below that I have two Trip-Lite UPSes. These maintain power to everything during
a power failure. With my load, they will run everything in my network closet for a little
over an hour.
Over to the left is where I keep my server equipment. I have a Synology RS2416+ running
ten 3 terabyte Western Digital 7200 RPM drives, and fronted by two mirrored 250 gigabyte Samsung
EVO 850 SSDs for caching. These cache drives make an incredible difference in performance
since my servers are running ESXi and the operating systems live on the NAS.
Speaking of servers, these other two boxes are my servers. They are the 1U servers from
a pervious video, but I moved them to 2U cases because I needed more PCIe slots for another
project I was doing. In fact, I still have the 1U cases here in storage which I’ll
probably build a lab box with at some point. These have servers VMs that run lots of different
things in my home. I’m running Homeseer for home automation, PLEX for video serving
and live-TV distribution, Observium for network monitoring, and several other things. And
yes, I am legally licensed for all of this stuff.
Back over here on top of the network rack is one more device. This is an HD Homerun
Extend. You plug an aerial antenna into it and then plug it into your ethernet network.
Then using a number of different software packages, you can distribute broadcast TV
around your home without the need to run antenna cables to all of your TVs. There are apps
for almost any device, such as Apple TV, XBOX, or Smartphones. However, I simply have my
PLEX media server distribute the video over the PLEX app. It’s simple and it works flawlessly.
Up here on above the servers is a Z-Net from Homeseer. This device broadcasts the Z-Wave
protocol throughout my home which controls my Z-Wave switches and other devices for home
automation. I really like this device because it allows me to run HomeSeer in virtual machine
and move it between servers without the need to move a physical USB stick to the other
physical box.
The last thing I’ll point out about my network closet is that it has a dedicated exhaust
fan connected to the return side of my home air conditioning unit. This fan is always
exhausting air from the room, even when the AC is not running. This keeps the room at
comfortable temperature. I have a lot of info on this setup on my website at TheGeekPub.com.
My Office This is my office where I work on most of
my videos and stuff. I’m running a Mac Pro I got on Craigslist that I run Final Cut Pro
X for video editing. Although I have to say I am seriously considering switching back
to a Windows PC with Adobe Premiere since Apple seems to be going a different direction
with pro stuff. Connected to my Mac Pro is a Drobo 5D that i use mainly for holding backups
of my older video footage. It’s connected via Thunderbolt. On top of my Drobo is an
external DVD drive and a USB3 Samsung T3 SSD drive which I use as my scratch disk for video
editing. It’s connected to a Samsung 28” 4K monitor.
Behind my desk is a test PC, and a Gigabyte Brix running Chrome in full screen. This shows
stats from Observium for my servers, networks, and Internet usage. You can see it also shows
the temperature.
Over to the left of that I have the Pacade that I built in a previous video that is powered
by a Raspberry Pi 3. This gets a lot of use and is something I tremendously enjoy having
in my office.
Down here on the floor is my little lab rack. This was sent to me by Rosewill. I have plans
for this little guy in an upcoming video. For now I am just running my lab switch in
it which is powering a PoE camera that is watching our pool be built. Now that’s a
project I can’t wait to be complete.
Of course, these aren’t really on my network, but this is where I am starting the buildout
of my 8-Bit computer museum. If someone wants to send me an Altair 8800, feel free!
The Game Room The Game Room is where I keep the full-size
arcade cabinet I built in a previous video. This thing is always a huge hit when we have
parties or guests stay with us.
In the middle of the room is our Gaming rig. I built this rig with my son a year or so
ago. It’s running an ASUS Z170 pro-gaming motherboard, an Intel Skylake i7-6700K processor,
16 gigabytes of RAM, and a GeForce GTX-1080 video card. Some of you have probably already
noticed that we’re also rocking an Oculus Rift. I am huge fan of virtual reality. For
those of you who think its a fad like 3D TV was, I challenge you to try the Oculus or
the HTC Vive. That stuff that you put your smartphone in isn’t even close to this experience.
Lastly, this is where have our console gaming area setup. We only have the XBOX ONE running
right now, but at some point I do hope to add the next-generation PlayStation to the
mix. This is the XBOX ONE Day One Edition.
Wireless Networking Placed strategically throughout the house
in various locations I keep Apple Airport Extremes. I like these because they can be
picked up really cheap used and they just work. They never crash and the performance
is excellent. In addition they support a feature called guest networking which works over VLAN
1003. This allows me to offer internet access to all of my guests without giving them access
to my home network. I have a whole article on my website on how to make this work without
using an Apple Router for your internet connection.
Security and Surveillance I’m a big believed in security and surveillance
and while I won’t show you everything in this video, I will show you a little of it.
Strategically placed around the house you will find a myriad of surveillance cameras.
My favorite cameras as the AXIS cameras. The picture is phenomenal and they never have
problems, but they are not cheap! These cameras are all connected via ethernet back the PoE
switch in my network closet, meaning they are hardwired and powered by ethernet. For
security reasons all of these cameras are on a private VLAN than has no access to my
home network. This prevents an intruder from accessing my home network by jacking in externally.
My Synology is connected to Amazon Drive and syncs all video footage to Amazon in the case
of fire or robbery where they actually steal the Synology Recorder.
Lastly, in addition to these regular alarm pads on the walls, we have electronic keypads
on the exterior doors. These keypads interface with the home automation system and alarm
for granting access to the home. This allows us to do some really neat stuff like restrict
a maids access to a certain day and set of hours. This helps prevent a burglary by service
company personnel when we are out of town or on a day they wouldn’t normally be here.
Home Automation The last thing I’ll show you is our home
automation setup. I won’t spend a lot of time on this because I already have a video
on how I set this up. Using HomeSeer, I have various bridge software in place that bridge
HomeSeer into other devices. Anything in the home can be controlled by Siri on an Apple
device or by Alexa. Speaking of Alexa, I have a few of them around the house at strategic
locations. In the kitchen which is sort of central to the house, but also on the nightstand
in the master bedroom.
For controlling my theater room and living room devices I used Harmony Hubs. These devices
are so simple to setup and make it a breeze to connect to Alexa, Siri, and HomeSeer. Just
saying “Alexa, Turn on Movie Night” and all of the gear turns on, the lights dim,
etc. Want to change the volume? Just ask Alexa or Siri. Want to change the channel or play
a certain song? Just ask Alexa or Siri.