Hi, it’s me again. I like to think that my endless questions help fuel community engagement to feel less bad :sweat_smile:

So like the title says, I’m interested in running an OPNsense router for my home network so I can do better firewall filtering for both security and privacy (ad-blocking, phoning home, etc.) purposes. I found this video by Dave’s Garage that talks about running OPNsense in Transparent Filtering Bridge mode. I also researched that it’s better to use a switch and APs for any wireless traffic rather than having the router/firewall combo do it, so any hardware suggestions there? Here’s info about my network:

• 500 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload speeds (stick with 1 Gbps ports right?)
• My Proxmox homelab is wired connection only, so I need to use one of the switch ports for it
• We do have a door camera (I pray it’s not Ring…), so I should set up VLANs right?
  • VLAN ideas: Guests, Family/Home, IoT, Homelab specifically? (any others suggestion VLANs/segmentation???)
  • Maybe I’ll do selfhosted IoT devices in the future because of this? The homelab must grow
• My mom watches a lot of YT on our FireTV, so any guides on what IPs to block for that?

So what Mini PC should I stick with (just 2 ports for WAN & LAN is fine right)? Do I need to avoid any specific brand NICs (do Mediatek cards suck)? What 4-port switch would be good? What wireless AP is recommended? Furthermore, how do you go about running cables in your home? The coax plate that my modem is connected to is literally in the corner of my house. The Wifi is bad in some spots because of this, so we’ve thought about extenders. But if I do my homelab and have a wireless AP, I can just run an Ethernet cable from the switch to a properly placed AP (I guess I’d need PoE then…) right? My mom is afraid of tripping on wires and while I say to just run them along the baseboard, she’s doubting me.