Preface
One of the joys of tinkering is maximizing value on a limited budget—in other words, if money were no object, you could just buy the best and call it a day, even if it’s overkill. The key is to cover not just current needs but also potential future use cases.
Here, I’ll briefly share some notes and insights from my networking experiments. Of course, the main reason for writing this is so that when my wife notices I’ve spent money but the home network still isn’t performing flawlessly, I can just toss this article her way and let her see exactly where the money went.
Network Topology Diagram
Enough talk—here’s the diagram:
My requirements:
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Devices with Ethernet ports or high network demands should use wired connections whenever possible. Examples include the PS5, Switch, and Mac Studio—wired is simply more stable and faster. No matter how fast wireless or 5G gets, the losses from spatial transmission are far greater than wired.
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Devices already connected to the router shouldn’t be reconnected—think smart home gadgets, TVs, phones, etc.—because it’s just too much hassle (inputting passwords for a dozen devices is a nightmare).
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Gaming consoles like the Switch and PS5 need to use the UU Accelerator for online play, but these devices don’t require VPN access.
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Smart devices like phones, iPads, and computers have their own VPN software, so they don’t need a VPN environment.
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The Apple TV doesn’t need access to Netflix or YouTube, so no VPN is required either. It just needs to connect to Alibaba Cloud Drive and external hard drive resources.
Since there’s both an optical modem and a router, there are two network segments: the optical modem is on 192.168.1.x, and the router is on 192.168.5.x. Devices on these two segments can’t communicate with each other.
Below, I’ll go into detail about each device in the order shown in the diagram.
Network Connections
Internet → Optical Modem
Cost: ¥149/month (broadband fee)
China Unicom Bundled 500M Fiber Optic Broadband, where the broadband is tied to a mobile number. The “bundled broadband” means the internet service remains active as long as the mobile number isn’t suspended, requiring an annual deposit of 1,000 yuan, which is then refunded monthly. Additionally, they provided an extra 500M broadband line, which I sold to a colleague to recoup some costs. When applying for the broadband, they also threw in a ZTE Wi-Fi 6 router, which I looked up online—it’s worth around 200 yuan and has been stable, so I’ve kept using it.
Optical Modem → Router
Cost: 0
The router is the one mentioned above, included with the broadband subscription. Many online suggest avoiding using the optical modem for PPPoE dialing and instead letting the router handle it, saving a subnet and leveraging the router’s superior performance. However, such setups are usually for power users with 10G broadband, which I don’t find necessary. Plus, having an extra subnet helps isolate some “dumb” smart devices that need direct connections, so I didn’t bother changing it. Besides, the free router isn’t that great anyway.
Optical Modem → Wireless Devices
Some “dumb” hardware, like the 360 Smart Home Camera, struggles with complex networks and may fail to connect. For this reason, I didn’t disable the optical modem’s Wi-Fi. It also serves as a troubleshooting tool to check whether network issues stem from the router or the modem.
Router → Multiple Devices
The router only has four Ethernet ports. I once searched for popular routers on JD.com and found most max out at four ports. So, after connecting the optical modem and the R4S, only two ports remain for wired devices—I assigned these to the Mac Studio and PS5.
Router → R4S
Cost: 620 yuan (fully loaded R4S configuration)
The R4S is connected as a bypass router, a non-intrusive setup that fits my needs. A bypass router treats the R4S as a device under the main router. For devices needing its services (e.g., gaming accelerator), you simply point their gateway and DNS settings to the R4S’s IP address within the same subnet.
Router → PS5/Mac Studio
In real-world tests, the PS5 downloads games much faster over wired than wireless. As for my Mac Studio—with such powerful specs, it deserves a wired connection, doesn’t it?
Router → Wireless Devices
The remaining devices are wireless ones, such as phones, tablets, Apple TV, other computers, and TVs—simply connect them to WiFi.
Detailed Explanation
The details here mainly pertain to the R4S, as setting it up as a secondary router previously required various configurations that were quite cumbersome. Hence, I’ve documented the process here.
Setting Up the Secondary Router
Converting the R4S Wan Port to a Lan Port
Cost: 79 RMB (USB to Gigabit Ethernet adapter cable)
Since the R4S comes with two network ports and is used as a secondary router, one Wan port would otherwise go to waste. Upon learning that its Wan and Lan ports are actually interchangeable, I made a simple adjustment to convert the Wan port into a Lan port. For instructions on setting up the R4S as a secondary router, refer to the video below, which provides a clear step-by-step guide:
Converting the Wan port to a Lan port is even simpler. In 网络-接口’s 接口总览, delete the WAN port, then in the physical settings of the LAN port, check 桥接接口. Next, select both physical interfaces below: eth0 (the original Wan physical interface) and eth1 (the existing Lan physical interface), then save and apply the settings.
With that, the setup is complete. I connected the Switch to this Lan port, but since the Switch doesn’t have an Ethernet port, I used a USB to Gigabit Ethernet adapter purchased from JD.com:
Installing Aliyun Drive WebDav on R4S
Cost: 98 RMB/year (Aliyun Drive service) + 9.9 USD/year (Infuse 7 subscription) + 1399 RMB (Apple TV)
No lengthy explanation; details here:
(If access is slow, the Chinese blog address can be accessed by changing the domain .com to .cn.)
Installing UU Router Plugin on R4S
Cost: 30 RMB/month (UU Accelerator fee) + 599 HKD/year (PS Premium membership) + 30.6 RMB/year (Nintendo membership)
The R4S came pre-installed with this plugin. If needed, you can install it yourself. Strangely, I once insisted that the official installation might be better, so I deleted the pre-installed UU Accelerator plugin on the R4S and installed it the official way (which lacks a LuCI interface):
However, the acceleration performance was poor (or maybe it was psychological—I didn’t conduct professional speed tests or controlled comparisons, but it just felt worse). Frustrated, I reset the R4S system and reverted to the pre-installed UU Accelerator plugin with its interface, which felt much better.
Although it claims to have an interface, it’s really just a switch 🥲.
Let’s look at the acceleration effect of the Switch:
The acceleration effect is quite noticeable. After playing Splatoon 3 and Mario Kart 8 for an entire afternoon, there were only 2 connection failures (Splatoon matches typically last a few minutes, so dozens of matches were played in the afternoon).
Installing qBittorrent on R4S
No need to elaborate further; details can be found here:
(If the access speed is slow, simply change the domain .com to .cn for the Chinese blog address.)
VPN Services
Cost: 241 CNY/year (Ninja Cloud) + 137 CNY/year (AgentNEO)
I previously used VPN services on the R4S, which indeed allowed devices like Apple TV and PS5 to directly access YouTube or share console album content to Twitter. However, these features are not essential, and using VPN plugins on the R4S conflicts with the UU Game Accelerator’s VPN service (perhaps they can coexist, but I didn’t bother troubleshooting). So, I kept only the accelerator function, as I rarely watch YouTube or Netflix anyway, and they can be accessed on a computer.
Other Notes
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It’s actually more advisable to set up IP and MAC address binding for wired connections in the router settings. This benefits both the accelerator and various services, preventing issues like service failures due to IP changes after reconnection. I was too lazy to do this.
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To ensure devices use wired connections as much as possible, you can connect the LAN port of the optical modem to the wired device. However, there are two issues with this:
- My crappy China Unicom optical modem model is
烽火 HG2543c1, which only has one gigabit port connected to the router. Thus, even using the optical modem’s 100Mbps wired connection is slower than the router’s gigabit 5G WiFi.
- My crappy China Unicom optical modem model is
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The optical modem and router are on two different network segments (the optical modem uses
192.168.1.1, while the router uses192.168.5.1). Therefore, a static routing table needs to be configured on the optical modem to allow devices connected to its LAN port to access devices on the subordinate router (such as a soft router). However, due to the limitations of this particular China Unicom optical modem, it lacks the static routing table feature. After spending hours trying to access the optical modem’s super administrator interface (the address ishttp://192.168.1.1/CU.html, which displays维修管理员账号), I made no progress. A call to the China Unicom technician revealed the following:-
They use a maintenance-specific app to access the backend, and the passwords are dynamically issued. They are unaware of whether a maintenance administrator account/super account exists—there might be one, but the manufacturer does not provide it to them.
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If I want features like router-based PPPoE dialing or setting up a home server, I can request an on-site visit from them.
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China Unicom’s optical modems do not support static routing tables, and replacing the modem won’t help. If more wired connections are needed, a switch must be used.
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Afterword
My home network setup is relatively simple—no complex NAS, router-based dialing, intranet penetration, or home theater functionalities. It’s all about simplicity: easy to understand, operate, troubleshoot, and most importantly, easy for my family to use.
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From the author:
I often wish that when facing some key decisions in life, someone could tell me the best course of action so that I would not waste my precious time. Putting myself in others' shoes, I therefore write blogs often, hoping to record in this tiny corner of the vast Internet the once-in-a-lifetime experiences that matter to me, and to help those who seek help.
