Using a Switch

[jnowland7]

Can some please tell me if the A+ supports the use of a switch to expand the Ethernet ports?

[Ashok]

@ jnowland7,

Yes.

[fillibar]

While Ashok gave official confirmation, I will give practical use also. I had a 24 port Gigabit switch that the Almond+ was connected to without any issue. Then I upgraded (number of ports, not speeds) to a 48 port 10/100 switch with PoE. Still works perfectly. In a week or so that will be replaced with a 48 port Gigabit switch with PoE but I foresee no problems whatsoever.

Just for those curious... yes, this is my house. No, most of the ports are not active. I just have been running Cat6 to every room, multiple to bedrooms, and many to areas like our office, entertainment area, and my work spaces. Rather than have to ever worry about moving cables I figured I would just put a switch in the basement and connect everything there. As a future note to anyone... I would never recommend that... Find a more central location such as a closet or something with easier access through the center of your house. If you build... for gosh sakes think about putting conduits for future proofing. Running all those cables (we have a split level so some are extremely long) has been a pain and has made me spend a lot of time in the attic running cable all the way up there to then run in back down into the bedrooms.

[Shazster]

I have a switch on the go as well. Nothing fancy like fillibar's, just a cheap-bunny 25$ 5port d-link Walmart special. Works fine (so far).
Works fine. But like fillibar, I plan to run some more cable, so I will be upgrading my switch shortly.

[jnowland7]

Thanks y'all for your responses.  The main reason I asked this is that I could not seem to get the port forwarding to work.  I have 2 security cameras connected by an Ethernet cable via a switch.  I had all of the port forwarding correct as I knew it however, I could not access the cameras remotely.  Therefore I figured maybe it was the switch that the A+ was having issues with.  I finally gave up and reconnected my ASUS router, which I have had zero port forwarding issues with.

[Ashok]

@ jnowland7,

You are welcome. Most probably, you were using the Almond+ in Router mode, where the DHCP would be enabled and the port forwarding done on the source device wouldn't apply. Try to setup the Almond+ in Access point mode and that should solve the issue.