How to Setup Two Routers on the Same Home Network

if you have a large home or even a large home network with lots of devices adding a second router may be something for you to consider it can not only improve the coverage for both wired and wireless devices but can improve overall performance as well in this video i'll show you how to connect the second router to your home network both wired and wirelessly now if you'd rather follow a written guide for this i'll leave a link to my article in the description box below for you to check out if you find the video helpful i'd really appreciate it if you could drop it like subscribe to the channel if you haven't already and ring the bell to turn on notifications now let's jump straight in and quickly cover some of the benefits of using the second router chances are your existing router has ethernet ports on the back for connecting wired devices adding a second router immediately adds more of these ports for you to use without the need to connect a network switch having a second router is useful if you have a wired home network but also want to connect some devices wirelessly the network can be separated in the sense that the wired devices continue to connect to the primary router whereas all the wireless devices instead connect to the secondary router now this is particularly helpful if your wired devices are at completely the other end of your home compared to the wireless devices if some of your devices use a lot of bandwidth a dual router setup can be used to isolate them and prevent the network traffic from affecting your other devices as one example you may want to look at isolating a pc that's downloading lots of files or gaming online from your smart tv that's trying to stream netflix the second router can be used to simply extend an existing wi-fi connection greatly improving the coverage throughout your entire home it may even extend so far to provide devices with a stable connection where it previously received no connection whatsoever put simply it doesn't hurt to have a working backup router available should the primary one fail now you know some of the benefits of adding a second router to your home network let's look at how it's all set up when connecting the two you have the choice of doing it wired or wirelessly now don't worry i will cover both setups but there are a few things you want to consider before you make your decision first of all you need to decide which of your routers is going to be the primary and which is going to be the secondary ideally you'd pick the newer more fully featured router to be your primary one but if you have two that are exactly the same it really doesn't make any difference next you want to place both of the routers close to the computer that you can be using to configure them both this is just for ease of access we can move them to the permanent locations later on and finally you want to decide what you actually want to achieve from having a second router as there are different connection types these are lan to lan or lan to wan lan to lan extends your existing network connection and ssid to the secondary router as an example this type of connection will allow you to share files between devices regardless of which router they're connected to lan to wan works slightly differently in there it creates a second network within the primary network which allows you to place restrictions on the devices connected to it so it's useful if you're wanting to isolate some of your devices but just a heads up to say that the lan to wan setup doesn't support sharing files across the two different networks once you've decided which will be best for you it's time to actually get it set up first things first we need to perform the initial setup of the primary router make sure the router is connected to your modem via an ethernet cable if it's not already built into the router itself and then take another ethernet cable and connect the computer that you're going to be using to do the config to the router now some windows pcs and macs won't come with built-in ethernet ports anymore so you may need a usb to ethernet adapter if yours doesn't the primary router will be controlling the connection to the internet via the modem so you need to set it up as if it's the only router that you're going to be using you'll need to access the router's web interface which is usually done by entering its ip address into your web browser and then entering the credentials unless you have changed the username and password which is highly recommended by the way you'll usually find them printed on a card that came with the router now remember that the settings of your router will vary drastically depending on the make and model of it if you ever get stuck finding a particular setting simply check the router's manual or consult the support section online if you've decided to set up a lan to land network you can skip this step as the dhcp settings don't need to be changed but if you're setting up a lan to wan network you'll need to change the dhcp settings to provide addresses between 192 168 1.2 and 192 168 1.50 once these changes have been saved log out the router and disconnect your computer from it as we've done configuring this one next you need to log in and connect to the second router just as you did with the first one and browse to the section which allows you to change the ip address of the router itself what you set the ip address to is important depending on whether you're going for a lan to lan setup or a land to wan setup if you're using the land to land setup change the router's ip address to match that of the first one but increase the second to last digit by one so if the primary router has an ip address of 192.168.1.1 you need to change the second router's ip address to 192.168.2.1 but if you're using lan to one setup change the router's ip address to 192.168.1.51 notice that this is just outside the dhcp range that we set up on the primary router once the ip address has been set make sure that the subnet mask matches that with the primary router and disable upnp if the option is there now again this step is different if you're using lan to one compared with lantawan for land to land turn off the dhcp service completely for land to wan change the dhcp scope to provide ip addresses between 192 168 2.2 and 192 168 2.50 now if both of your routers are wireless as many are these days you'll need to change the wireless channel so they don't conflict with each other this is easily done by keeping the primary router using wireless channels between one and six and then changing the secondary router to use wireless channel 11. so that's all the configuration work on both routers done make sure to save your changes log out and disconnect from your router as it's time to position them in a permanent location but just remember you will need an ethernet cable to connect the two of them when you're using a wired setup to save trailing even more cables around your home if your modem is a separate device it's probably worth placing the primary router next to it now regardless of which network setup you're using the two routers need to connect to each other but which port you use will depend on the connection type for land to lan plug an ethernet cable into one of the available lan ports on the primary router and then connect the other end of the ethernet cable to another lan port on the back of the secondary router for a lan to wan setup connect an ethernet cable again to one of the lan ports on the primary router but plug the other end into the wan port of the second router now this may not be labeled as one as it could be referred to as an internet port once connected you have successfully added a second router to your home network using a wired connection now let's take a look at how you can do all of this wirelessly before you go down the route of setting up your router wirelessly you need to first check that the equipment that you have is even compatible most wireless routers can be used as a wireless access point or a range extender however not all of them can be used to create their own network within the primary network for this you must ensure that the second router has what's known as a bridge or a repeater mode if you're unsure again check the router's manual or check the manufacturer's website for the answer so if you haven't already you need to perform the initial setup of the primary router if they are separate make sure the router is connected to your modem using an ethernet cable then connect your computer to your router via another ethernet cable remember that you may need a usb to ethernet adapter if your computer doesn't have a built-in ethernet port in exactly the same way as i described earlier browse to your router's ip address and log in with username and password now if this is a brand new router that you haven't used before follow the prompts to complete the initial setup save the changes and then log out and disconnect from it as you don't need to make any more changes to this router now it's time to connect to the second router again using an ethernet cable logging in and then opening the configuration page you'll need to browse to a setup page that is likely to be called internet or wireless the router doesn't need to connect to the modem again if they are separate at this stage so you don't have to worry about that within the setup page you're looking for network mode under connection type or wireless mode select bridge mode or repeater mode depending on the maker mode of your router it doesn't matter what it's labeled as as they both do exactly the same thing now if you don't see this option it's likely that your router doesn't support bridging so in this case you either need to purchase a new router that does support it or connect your two routers using a wide connection as i described earlier the ip address of the second router needs to fall within the dhcp range of the primary router for example if the primary router has a dhcp range of 192.168.1.2 and 192.168.1.50 you need to make sure the ip address of the second router falls anywhere in between these two numbers while configuring the ip address just make sure that the subnet mask also matches the primary router it is recommended that you give the second router a unique name just so it's clear to you as to which router you're connecting to when you're working with your devices you may want to name the routers depending on where they're positioned in your home but ultimately what you name them really doesn't matter make sure both routers are set to use wpa2 security but most of them are likely to have this already set you may also want to make sure both routers use the same password just for ease of use just remember to set it to something secure and that can't be easily guessed to improve your overall home network security the configuration of the second router is now complete so you can save the changes log out and disconnect it from your computer and position it to where you want in your home for a good connection between both routers to be maintained it's recommend you place the second router in an area that receives at least 50 percent of the signal strength from the primary router but ultimately the higher you can get this the better if there is a direct line of sight between both routers you'll likely see a more consistent strong signal compared with if there were any walls in the way so setting up a second router on your home network is relatively easy but there are a few alternatives you may want to consider instead but without any router ip address or dhcp configuration being needed so firstly you may want to look at connecting a network switch to your existing home network instead of a second router switches can vary in terms of the number of ethernet ports they provide as well as the actual type of switch they could be managed or unmanaged just remember you will be limited to using a wired connection with a network switch for a wi-fi network you may want to consider adding a wireless network point instead of a secondary router these can help improve the wireless coverage throughout your home and only consume one lan port on the back of the router so that's a walk through on how to add a second router to your home network if you enjoyed the video and you found it helpful i'd really appreciate it if you could drop a like subscribe to the channel and ring the bell to turn on notifications now i did mention quite a few technical terms in this video so i'll leave a glossary of these terms in the description box below you'll also find links to some of my recommended gear including routers network switches and ethernet cables if you want to check them out one last thing make sure you head on over to homenetworkgeek.com where i have a ton of articles on everything home networking thank you so much for watching and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Home Network Geek

Views: 65,407

Keywords: home network geek, homenetworkgeek.com, home networking, IT, networking, technology, home network, setup router, setup two routers, how to setup two routers, how to setup two routers on the same network, how to setup two routers on the same home network, router setup guide, router setup tutorial, home network router, home network two routers, two routers on lan, two routers on network, two routers same network, lan to lan setup, lan to wan setup, lan to lan router, lan to wan

Id: MEY50CGQbRw

Length: 11min 13sec (673 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 16 2020