Separate wifi for each unit in a duplex.

[Nate810]

TL;DR- How do I separate wifi for guests in 2 separate units so they don't cast movies to each others tvs in the middle of the night?

Up until now, I've rented out our entire 4bd/3ba home as one unit. The basement is essentially a guest suite, with a bedroom, living room, full bathroom and kitchenette. Our guests appreciate the space especially when there are multiple families staying together, one family can have a private space. This has been especially good for business travelers staying together. 

Well, we are in the middle of slow season, and it has been dreadfully slow. Much slower than the previous few years since we started hosting. Now I need to be creative. So I am listing the property as 3 separate listings. Whole house, main floor unit, and basement unit. I have all the calendars setup to block each other when we get a booking. 

It just occurred to me though. The wifi could potentially cause problems. Mainly because if guests from either unit are connected to the same wifi, they will be able to cast from their devices to TV's in the other unit. Not a major problem, but has the potential for a negative experience. Say the guest upstairs is sleeping and the basement guests accidentally casts a movie to the TV in the upstairs bedroom at 2am and wakes the guest up. Ugh.

Right now my wifi setup is fairly simple. We have our xFinity Gateway, and a Deco mesh system with 3 access points. The first access point is near the Xfinity gateway in an upstairs bedroom, the 2nd is in the master bedroom upstairs and the 3rd is in the basement which helps bring signal to the TV and exterior camera at the basement entrance. I use one of the wifi channels to run all of our smart devices that the guests don't control, like the washer/dryer/range/cameras, etc.. The other network is for them to sign onto and the TV's are on that same channel so that they can stream from their devices. 

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can separate the guests wifi access to avoid potential problems? I'm hoping to not have to install a 2nd dedicated broadband connection for each unit, but I'm open to buying some other equipment to achieve this. 

[Rebecca]

Great question @Nate810. I've had a similar situation when my children stream one thing and take over the main television! 

I wonder if you could have a separate router for each area? I must admit, I'm not that technically minded though so I'd like to tag in some hosts that may have some more ideas. @Guy991, @Thomas3789 or @Sheri1 - what do you think? 

Thanks so much in advance. 😊

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Nate810 we operated our house and 3 attached flats from one internet supply that was then wired out to 4 wifi routers. As a result the signals were available in all 4 properties (at varying strengths). Only occasionally did the our TV show a code or ask for a code (I can't remember which) and we never had any complaints from guests.

[Guy991]

Hello @Nate810 @Rebecca ,

Your property is absolutely stunning! It’s a professional-level setup. New hosts could learn a lot from the way you designed the kitchen and the choices you made there.

Now, to your question—I see that you have smart TVs. What I did was rename each TV to match the room name or number instead of keeping the default, meaningless serial number. This way, guests connect to the TV labeled with their suite’s name, and I’ve never had any issues with it. It’s a quick, five-minute fix that costs nothing.

@Mike-And-Jane0  gave you solid advice. If the house is old and has wired Ethernet, you can install a router in each socket, creating a local network. Guests will need to switch networks when moving to the living room, but it works.

There are also solutions from router manufacturers and mesh network companies like TP-Link. However, these are typically designed for larger properties and may not be budget-friendly. You can check online to see if any options suit your needs (this feature is called Multiple SSID).

As I mentioned before, I have several units with a mesh internet system that is crazy fast and super reliable, and simply naming the TVs solved the issue for me! The mesh also allows you to create an additional network for guests, so you can have at least two separate networks. And that means that when you rent the units separately, you give the main house guests the main network and the basement guests the guest network. But when you rent it as a whole, you provide just one network so they don’t need to switch when moving between rooms.

I hope this is clear, and I hope something here will help you.

[Zheng49]

High end routers should allow you to have many different Wifi networks.

The router that I'm using can support 3 different wifi networks at once. One 2.4GHz band, and two distinct 5GHz bands. The router I'm using is ROG AX-11000, but I imagine other (high end) routers may also deliver similar functionality.