On home networks there are two ways of assigning IP addresses,they are:
- Manual Assignment – Static Addresses
- Dynamic Assignment –DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol)
Manual Assignment – Static Addresses
Assigning addresses manually is generally not recommended for laptops,tablets,smart phones and generally they are always set to use DHCP.
However for devices that you need to connect to and configure, then knowing the IP address of the device is critical.
Smart home devices like switches (Sonoff/Shelly) are generally given static IP addresses.
There are two ways to assign static IP addresses and they are:
- Manually on the device
- Using static addresses on the DHCP server.
Setting Manually on the device
Not all devices support this method. Shelly devices do but Tasmota devices don’t. Below is a screen shot of the Shelly 1 assignment.
The problem with this approach is that if you need/want to change it later you need to do it on the device.
Using static addresses on the DHCP server
This is the preferred method as it is the most flexible. You configure the device to use DHCP and on the DHCP server you make the address assignment static.
On my network my home router is the DHCP server and the assignment is shown in the screen shot below:
If you need to change it later then you can do it easily from the dhcp server.
Reserving Addresses on a DHCP Server
Most DHCP servers reserve a block of addresses for static on manually assigned addresses.
My home router reserves around 64 IP addresses static from 192.168.1.1.
If you have lots of smart devices then you may need to increase this block size.
If you have a very large number of devices then you may need to use a larger IP address block as the standard 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0 only allows for 254 devices.
Whereas the 192.168.0.0/255.255.0..0 assignment allows for over 64,000.
However if you have a large number of devices then using a separate network than your normal home network would be the better approach. See smart home network planning (coming soon).
Address Assignment Planning and Documentation
It is recommend that you plan you address assignments beforehand and document them.
This becomes more important as the number of devices increases. See Documenting Your Home Network
Related Tutorials and Resources:
- How to Set Up A Static IP Address on Windows 10
- IP Addresses on Home Networks – A Beginner’s Guide
- How to Setup and Configure your Home Router
- How to Set Up a Home Network- Beginners Guide
- Home Networking Course for Beginners