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Can I resurrect this thread? We have Wifi dead spots in our house. We’re considering going to ultra fibre broadband because we can now get it, but will that help with dead spots, or just make it faster when we’re connected. We have a single link extender which works ok ish, but we get annoying drop out in our kitchen which is where we spend a lot of time.
Do mesh systems require each device (is that the right word?) to be plugged into an LAN (is that the thing that is like the phone socket that my router is plugged in to)? Or do they connect to each other?
@Benkyo is your system working?
A mesh wifi solution will, typically, use Wifi to backhaul all the traffic to the primary mesh device. The specific product/service you are using will dictate the actual behavior.
Is the broadband provider providing their own product? Or an off-the-shelf product?
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Not their own product, just chatting with a friend who suggested the Amazon system, but I know next to nothing about mesh in general.
We’ve all got Android stuff and I use Chrome so Google can’t know more about us by using their system. Similar with Amazon. We’ve used tp link at home and in work. I believe we only have one wall port (LAN port?) which is by the front door.
No. “Broadband” basically means delivery to your house. Wifi delivers around your house. Speeding up delivery to the house doesn’t fix problems that exist down the line. So if you were to upgrade your broadband while keeping your existing wifi router, there’s no reason to expect improvements.
On the other hand, I’ve seen improvements in wifi that stem from upgrading the router to something more powerful/newer, so a new router might help. Especially if you don’t yet have 802.11n or 802.11ac. Getting fibre put in might come with a router upgrade as part of the kit.
I can strongly recommend fibre if you can get it. We routinely have multiple people streaming concurrently and our only problems are from occasional bad wifi. [fibre via BT Broadband in the UK]
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We have Google WiFi, which is supposed to be able to use wired ethernet connections so they don’t have to connect to each other by WiFi mesh, but for some reason that isn’t working.
The mesh itself works ok, despite our steel and concrete construction, aside from one room. I cannot figure out why this one room drops the connection frequently, going from full bars to zero for just long enough to disconnect from whatever streaming service is being used.
So yeah, can’t recommend Google WiFi.
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In general my experience has been that an actual boring old-fashioned ethernet cable still works better than anything else. You can mesh wifi, you can powerline, and mostly it’ll work most of the time, but ethernet is just rock solid and if you have any way of running cables to put more APs in the dead-spot rooms it’s likely to be a good thing.
I used to recommend Unifi APs but they seem to be going a bit dark side these days.
It’s all about phones and tablets, not anything that can be plugged in. My desktop is plugged in, of course.
For clarity: an AP, access point, sits at the end of an ethernet cable (the other end of which is ultimately connected, perhaps by more cables, to your central router, which for many people will be the box that provides internet access). It has one or more radios in it which provide one side of a wifi link, which your phone/etc. does the other side of.
At least here in the UK there’s deliberate obfuscation by ISPs about the difference between internet access and wifi quality. The typical setup here is an all-in-one box which connects to the outside internet, has an ethernet socket or two, and has some wifi radios as well. But these jobs can all be done by separate bits of kit.
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Yeah, we all have phones, tablets and laptops.
Plus 3 Alexas and 2 Xboxes
As I said above, the Google wifi mesh APs we have do not, for unknown reasons, recognise when they are connected by ethernet to the central router. A computer plugged in the same way works fine.
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I had a very frustrating experience with my unifi kit recently. The controller did something to hopeless corrupt its configuration, long enough ago that the backups of configuration were all corrupt. I discovered this when one of the base stations went hay wire, and I tried to run the controller so I could get the base station back in the network. i was unable to make the controller software work, was unable to get it properly reset to nil state. So I upgraded it to the current version, which did not run on my mac, for cryptic fucking-java reasons (but because Ubiquiti aren’t properly packaging the software on the mac.) I had to install a somewhat older version (newere than I’d been running) to get it work. Ubiquiti’s response is more or less “buy a cloud key”. So that, and poor response to data leak problems last year, have bascially made them a do not buy for me.
Than I discovered the actual problem with the basestation was that the wiring was damaged, and the POE dropped out (based on behavior, it was supplying power but when the load was high, it failed). Reterminating both ends of that cable in new keystone jacks has solved the problem.
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We’re running Eero. Speed and ease of use is excellent. Occasionally have to reboot when the units overheat or when a device gets stuck in a “connected” state and loses internet.
The problem is that Eero, even on their premium subscription, offers nearly zero in the way of port and firewall control. We used to block social media at night, but there is really no way to do that.
If I were shopping again, I’d look around for something with a more open, configurable router. THAT SAID, if you are just looking for plug and play performance, Eero is a fine choice.
I now see there are two conversations here. Capt, in plainer English, with a mesh system, each unit needs to be plugged into only a power outlet. ONE unit gets plugged into the modem/internet access point.
All the other units connect to that main, wired unit wirelessly to get their own internet.
Then, all the stuff in your house connects (wifi or wired) to whichever of the mesh units is closest, and it all leapfrogs down.
Two other solutions: you can more cheaply get a wifi extender. You can plug it into the wall and connect it to your main wifi, and it will essentially broadcast a second wifi network (you position it so this second network covers your dead zones). This is less expensive and easy to set up, but can be a pain when your house has two networks. If you are trying to print wirelessly or game on your LAN, you may find that your devices are on different networks and can’t talk to each other.
I’ve also heard about things that use your house’s electrical wiring to extend the network? So you plug a few units into different outlets and they talk to each other via your cabling, making an extended network. No idea if that is still around or what the pros/cons are.
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Thanks
We have wifi extenders, which get the signal to the attic, but not the kitchen. That electrical wiring thing doesn’t work for us, I assume because we have a Victorian house and old electrics.
Yes, that’s “Powerline” (which is a whole family of standards at different data rates).
Pros:
- no extra wiring
- if it works, generally more reliable than wifi
Cons:
- if it doesn’t work, you probably can’t make it work (in particular ELCDs/RCBs as found in modern installations tend to filter out the signal)
- lower data rate than ethernet
- puts out a lot of electromagnetic noise, which probably won’t affect you directly but is an unfriendly thing to do
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All of the mesh solutions I’ve seen support hybrid modes, where more than one AP is wired. If you can get an ethernet cable to them, this is the best way to go. Ethernet is faster, it’s more reliable (my recent bit of cat damaged cat5 not withstanding…), and it’s largely immune to interference. It’s more work, of course, but if you’re going to be in the place long term, it will pay off.
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Also, remember, you can use the wifi stuff just for the wifi, and put another box behind them to do ‘router’ stuff (like DHCP and NAT and scheduling access times or whatever). That’s always been my very strong preference.
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Good to know, thanks! I’d often wondered about such things but never took the time to research.
I use the BT Whole Home mesh network in a three storey brick house. Easiest thing I have ever set up. Every dish is also an Ethernet port. Just attached the lead one to the router and turned off the WiFi on the provided box.
This is a UK only solution.
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