--- title: I used an old router as a dedicated smart home network,... description: A practical guide to repurposing an old ASUS RT-AC66U router as a dedicated smart home network using FreshTomato firmware. By connecting the old router to the... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-an-old-router-as-a-dedicated-smart-home-network-and-it-solved-two-problems-at-once-vogsqytyh twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: I used an old router as a dedicated smart home network, and it solved two problems at once | daily.dev og:description: A practical guide to repurposing an old ASUS RT-AC66U router as a dedicated smart home network using FreshTomato firmware. By connecting the old router to the... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-an-old-router-as-a-dedicated-smart-home-network-and-it-solved-two-problems-at-once-vogsqytyh og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/vogSQYtYH.png og:image:alt: I used an old router as a dedicated smart home network, and it solved two problems at once og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # I used an old router as a dedicated smart home network, and it solved two problems at once **[XDA Developers](https://daily.dev/sources/xda-developers)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A practical guide to repurposing an old ASUS RT-AC66U router as a dedicated smart home network using FreshTomato firmware. By connecting the old router to the main router via Ethernet and assigning IoT devices to a separate subnet, smart devices are fully isolated from personal devices without the complexity of VLAN firewall rules in OPNsense. Home Assistant is bridged across both networks using a second NIC in Proxmox, giving it access to both smart devices and the main network. The approach solves two problems: security isolation of cheap IoT devices and elimination of maintenance overhead from complex firewall configurations. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Your old router gathering dust could be the network upgrade your smart home needs](https://daily.dev/posts/your-old-router-gathering-dust-could-be-the-network-upgrade-your-smart-home-needs-mxr4bi1vy) · XDA Developers · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Your old router is the secret to a stable smart home](https://daily.dev/posts/your-old-router-is-the-secret-to-a-stable-smart-home-wvnoejwnx) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [My old router is now the only thing standing between my smart devices and the internet](https://daily.dev/posts/my-old-router-is-now-the-only-thing-standing-between-my-smart-devices-and-the-internet-2iylurebo) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [My smart home got more reliable when I moved it to a separate VLAN, not just more secure](https://daily.dev/posts/my-smart-home-got-more-reliable-when-i-moved-it-to-a-separate-vlan-not-just-more-secure-l9fhgr1wa) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [I built a perfectly segmented home network, then spent six months poking holes back through it](https://daily.dev/posts/i-built-a-perfectly-segmented-home-network-then-spent-six-months-poking-holes-back-through-it-vgky0ahau) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#tech-news](https://daily.dev/tags/tech-news), [#proxmox](https://daily.dev/tags/proxmox) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-an-old-router-as-a-dedicated-smart-home-network-and-it-solved-two-problems-at-once-vogsqytyh) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"I used an old router as a dedicated smart home network, and it solved two problems at once","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-an-old-router-as-a-dedicated-smart-home-network-and-it-solved-two-problems-at-once-vogsqytyh","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/i-used-an-old-router-as-a-dedicated-smart-home-network-and-it-solved-two-problems-at-once-vogsqytyh"},"datePublished":"2026-06-07T00:05:08.186Z","dateModified":"2026-06-07T00:05:33.089Z","description":"A practical guide to repurposing an old ASUS RT-AC66U router as a dedicated smart home network using FreshTomato firmware. 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