# Mesh WiFi



## garage_dweller (Apr 10, 2018)

The WiFi signal upstairs in my house is dire, even with a decent signal booster.

I'm getting around 380mb downstairs where the router is, and about 20mb upstairs.

This is in a modern 4 bed house so not thick walls or anything.

So I think a mesh system is the answer. I've looked at a few, don't really want to spend more than about £150 if possible. Something like this seems fine and doesn't look too ugly NETGEAR Orbi Whole Home Mesh Wi-Fi Network System https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YQGS2W8/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_9DwmFbWMV1N2Y

Any recommendations?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Deathstar (Jan 13, 2013)

I have been around the houses so to speak improving my WiFi, and nothing seems to be robust enough. 
Though I have never we tried a mesh system due to cost.
I ended up running two Cat 6 cable runs, one to hue conservatory for the garden WiFi using an old router. The other to the loft to a switch and another old router. Both runs are on the outside of the house to faceplates with euro modules. All done for less than 50 quid.
This has resulted in a very robust and fast network.


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## HEADPHONES (Jan 1, 2008)

I use this.
Plug and go.
Now I can watch Netflix in my cellar/man cave and upstairs in the bedroom.


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## shl-kelso (Dec 27, 2012)

Mesh systems are not a magic bullet - they still work using the same frequencies and power outputs as all other wifi equipment. So unless you can flood you property with lots of wireless nodes to increase the radio coverage you may end up with similar problems as before. 

Wireless mesh systems are also not all equal - adding “mesh” to a product description does not mean it all works the same, “mesh” does not guarantee any particular type of functionality. So your first job is to decide what features you are looking for - do you want automatic roaming between access
points for seamless coverage (this requires features in both the access points and client devices to work well)? How about band steering where the access points aim to force 5GHz capable clients onto the 5GHz band (which often delivers better speeds but i see shorter distances), thereby leaving 2.4GHz free for those devices that are not 5GHz compatible?

If you wan the best performance from a wireless mesh system the. you also need to consider going for tdi-band units - these have a dedicated radio just for the mesh linking, which avoids the halving of bandwidth usually associated with wireless extenders. But this all costs money, so may not for your budget. 

If you want the best performance then a wired ethernet solution to link up your additional access points would be best and most reliable, but that means running new cabling. And again, if you want the kind of feature listed above you need a “managed” system such as that offered by Ubiquiti Unifi systems. However these are not suited to non-technical users as they require an amount of knowledge to configure properly. 

if you are not particularly technical or comfortable with the more complex systems then maybe the BT While Home wifi systems may be worth a look as they are purposely kept simple, using an app for deployment/setup. The disadvantage is that more advanced functions are unavailable, so if you need more control than is available in the app then tough, it is not supported. And that is a similar issue with many other systems - those that make things very simple to set up often prevent more advanced operation/tweaking, and those that have lots of configuration options require a certain level of experience and knowledge to deploy properly. 

Personally I would go for wired ethernet to additional access points first but also use wired ethernet for any device that can use it provided you can get cables to that location. After that I’d see if powerline would work to extend the reach of the network, and only use wireless systems if all other options were not possible or usable in a particular application/location.


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## garage_dweller (Apr 10, 2018)

Lots of info there, some a bit over my head and far too involved to get a bit of a speed boost for my WiFi 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## JoeyJoeJo (Jan 3, 2014)

I used to use powerline adpaters and they were perfectly adequate for years in a number of properties but I bought an Amplifi 2 node mesh last year (4 bed new build), main router in lounge (almost at floor level, under a shelf), access node opposite side of the house upstairs in my home office.

Every device in the office has faster throughout when the node is disabled and they connect to the primary the other side of the house.

Node is now unplugged and good signal all through the house.
I think it might have been better if it had an ethernet backhaul but *for me* the mesh just added a layer of complexity and bandwidth reduction.

A decent router might give you a better solution than a mesh but obviously ymmv


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## NickP (Nov 20, 2005)

I can certainly recommend, the Ubiquiti Unifi solutions, I have 3 of their UAP-AC-LR AP's and have rock solid coverage all over the house and the garden, as previously mentioned though there is some technical knowledge needed to set them up, although I'm no expert and have managed!


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## cossiecol (Jun 29, 2014)

NickP said:


> I can certainly recommend, the Ubiquiti Unifi solutions, I have 3 of their UAP-AC-LR AP's and have rock solid coverage all over the house and the garden, as previously mentioned though there is some technical knowledge needed to set them up, although I'm no expert and have managed!


This

I'm in the process of moving completely over to Ubiquiti network setup which includes the gateway router, 2 x 8 port PoE switiches and three AP Pro's (amongst other things).

Point of note is that to get the best out of them they need to me set up correctly (not just plug and play) and you do need to have some awareness of networks (or the ability to google/youtube). For me it's ideal as I can segment my network off easily into different vlans for work etc and have great overviews on the overall network. Worth the investment.


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## vsideboy (Sep 1, 2006)

Google WIFI for me, no complaints and 3 hub setup.


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## Russ (Jun 27, 2006)

Eero for me, nice and simple, one downstairs, one upstairs and I get full signal everywhere now, even in the garden, speed is pretty good, the app tells you which node you are technically connected too, is simple, which I love.


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## bildo (Mar 29, 2008)

I use these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Deco-E4-Seamless-Replacement/dp/B07RXLF5XZ/

I'm absolutely delighted with them. Purchased in Decemeber 19 and they've worked perfectly ever since.

I'd used 3-4 different 'repeaters' before these, none of which worked even close to how I'd hoped.


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## shl-kelso (Dec 27, 2012)

I’ll just reiterate (without taking anything away from those using systems and are happy) that extenders and dual band mesh systems will all effectively halve your wifi bandwidth before any other clients connect to it simply due to how wifi works - generally only one device can talk to a wifi AP at once, so for a mesh mode to repeat the signal from another node it effectively blocks anything else from talking to the AP while it talks to it. Only the more expensive tri-band systems, with a completely separate radio system for the mesh/extender link, can avoid this. This may not be an issue if you only have modest internet speeds and do not need to send large amounts of data internally within your own network, but it may affect performance for all clients if you have really fast broadband. The only-one-thing-talks-at-a-time is also why having a single access point with lots of wifi clients will also result in poor performance overall performance as many devices have to wait for their turn to talk to the AP. So if high performance is a requirement then wired access points are always going to be a better choice in most cases. If you can live with limiting performance across the system while also improving the availability and speed of wifi in the originally poor locations then wireless extenders or more affordable non-tri-band mesh systems may be perfectly acceptable. Just note that wifi (whether mesh-based or otherwise) all work the same way using the same protocols so all will perform in roughly similar ways. There are no magic systems that will work significantly better than any other similarly spec’ed setup either in range or speed, no matter what the marketing blurb might say. There are physical differences between wifi implementations/standards (multiple antennae’s for example that can support multiple “streams” to provide higher speeds to clients devices that support such features), but you’ll also never achieve the quoted highest speeds used in marketing these systems in the real world too, its similar to how car manufacturers use lab tests for setting mpg figures, but you cannot achieve these in real life driving.


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