"Quiet" Network?

[shralp]

I just completed the RA2 - Level 1 training and exam so I'm a newb to this. I have an installer I'm working with so he's going to handle all the programming for this setup for us. I mainly took the course because I'm a software developer by trade and I like to know how things work.

Anyway, they mentioned it a couple times during the course how you should make sure that the main repeater is on a 'quiet' network and that if it is too 'chatty' it can cause the system to go into safe mode...what exactly do they mean by this? This is a home network not an office environment so there's not a ton of users on the network but we do use it to stream content all over the house (Netflix, Kodi, Amazon Video, HD Homerun etc). Is that going to cause issues? What steps do I need to take to ensure I have no issues? Note: I'm a software guy, not a network guy but I know enough to be dangerous and set up a basic switch or router.

thanks in advance!

[randyc]

The issue (I'm not a network guy either) is that Lutron uses Multicast. That means the main repeater sees everything that goes across the network and has to decided if the traffic was meant for it or not. It can get overwhelmed. I have not seen that happen in quite some time.

Higher end routers have a feature called VLANS (virtual LANs). A single router could have multiple LANs (192.168.1.x, 192.168.2.x, etc.). This is an advanced feature and would probably require a network specialist to set up but you could put the kids on one VLAN, the movie streamers on another, etc.

[shralp]

The issue (I'm not a network guy either) is that Lutron uses Multicast. That means the main repeater sees everything that goes across the network and has to decided if the traffic was meant for it or not. It can get overwhelmed. I have not seen that happen in quite some time.

Higher end routers have a feature called VLANS (virtual LANs). A single router could have multiple LANs (192.168.1.x, 192.168.2.x, etc.). This is an advanced feature and would probably require a network specialist to set up but you could put the kids on one VLAN, the movie streamers on another, etc.

Thanks for the reply Randy. I do have a managed switch (ERX) that I could maybe setup in front of the repeater so it's on it'a own vlan. Does the repeater not use UDP rather than TCP for it's communications though? If so I would think it would just ignore the TCP traffic altogether?

[randyc]

I'm not sure about UDP vs TCP. When RR2 first came out I did see occasional lock ups that required rebooting. I haven't seen it happen in quite some time. You could always try it and if it is an issue move to VLANs.