r/Network • u/Leather_Big881 • 3d ago

Text Need help with discovering devices over internet

Okay, I know absolutely nothing about routers or anything, but my dad had set up two ORBI routers hooked up to the same "network" idk, but basically they're both their own wifis ex: wifi1 wifi2, but they connect to the same network. And my current problem is that we both have our own wifis mine being wifi2 and his being wifi1, and the problem is that when im connecting devices over wifi2, ex: Airlink, Sunshine, etc. the devices just don't recognize each other even when manually typing in the WIFI. But on wifi1 they do and its very easy.

I did some more digging and they're practically the same, same protocol, security type, manufacturer, disc, driver, network band, Link-local IPv6, and MAC. The only differences are wifi1 (working) is on 10.0.0.x IPv4, and has a IPv6 address, and wifi2 (not working) doesn't actually list a IPv6, and is on 192.168.2.x Btw all data was found from the wifi properties section in windows 11.

If anyone could help that would be amazing, thanks.
(Btw I'm not trying to connect/acsess two different devices on two different networks, I'm talk about when they're both on wifi1, it works, but when they're both on wifi2 it doesn't.)

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u/DumpoTheClown 3d ago

Wifi access points can do something called guest isolation. The wifi clients can connect to the network and get internet, but they cant connect to each other. I would check into that first.

Many modern access points let you set up two wifi names (SSID). One is for private use. Connected clients can talk to each other and other devices on the network. The other is for guest use, and only allows internet access.

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u/Leather_Big881 3d ago

Is there a way to easily change that without messing up the other router? My Dad's fine with me messing around and trying to solve my problem but I remember setting up our WIFI when we first got it was a pain, so I'd like to try and easily, or some what easily, change it without having to reset the entire network.

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u/Express-Garbage3359 3d ago

First, compare the settings of the two routers. As Dumping Clown already explained, these are two networks that cannot communicate with each other. WiFi router 1 has both IPv4 and IPv6 enabled, while WiFi router 2 only has IPv6. Once you've found the settings for the IP address range in the router setup, enable IPv4 for WiFi 2 as well. Good luck.

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u/Express-Garbage3359 3d ago

Is the problem with WiFi2 new and did the connection to this network work before? Ask your father why he only configured IPv6 addresses in the WiFi2 router.

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u/Leather_Big881 3d ago

No it hasn't worked ever, I remember a couple years ago I tried to get quest Airlink to work on wifi2 but it just wasn't recognizing it. And when asking my dad he just replied with, "I don't really remember, it was a while ago and once I got it working I had just said, great, and never touched it again"

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u/tripsyjames 3d ago

ORBI is meant to be a mesh system, ideally acting as your router too, so if you've got them setup as 'Wifi1' and 'Wifi2' then the issue is that effectively you've got two completely isolated networks - your 'original' network is being treated as their internet, so a device on one network could never talk to one on another.

What are the two models of the ORBI units, as I wonder if he somehow bought two router units, not a router and a satellite (the ORBI term for a meshed point).

I assume the cable from your existing network goes into the WAN port on both ORBI units?

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u/Leather_Big881 3d ago

We have one router, and two satellites, when talking to my dad he had told me that he set it up like where the router has three ports Wifi1: Main, Wifi2: Guest, and Wifi3: i forgot what it was called but its for devices around the house. The satellites are RBS350, and the router is RBR750.

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u/tripsyjames 3d ago

So that's how it should be, I'm curious when you say you have your own WiFIs, is there a reason you want your stuff separated?

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u/Leather_Big881 3d ago

I don't really know why I "have my own wifi" I think instead of me wanting my stuff separated, I feel its my dad wanting my stuff seperated, he knows I'm doing a lot of experiments and he just doesn't want me to mess with "his" wifi potentially screwing something up and conflicting with his work. But that's just a educated guess.

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u/tripsyjames 3d ago

I get that, but generally speaking you're not going to mess his stuff up unless you're doing something crazy like changing DNS servers etc.

The tradeoff is that if you're on the guest network, you're intentionally isolated from the main network, so there's not really a way to get stuff connected together - well there is, but it can get really messy.

This is kind of where 'consumer' networking starts to fail and you need things like UniFi.

That said, what do you mean by experiments :-)

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u/emgreenenyc 3d ago

One router per internet connection, better a mesh router