Mesh WiFi

New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
 steve taylor 26 Aug 2021

Does anyone have experience of this recently?

Our existing WiFi box doesn't "reach" to either the garage or one of our bedrooms (or very far into the garden). I can see that a mesh solution would probably work, and have the added bonus of no switching when moving around. However, there are quite a few options from $100 to $1000 on amazon. 

Any recommendations from adopters of this technology? I'm reasonably technical, so should be OK setting it all up.

 TMM 26 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

We had a similar problem. I am not very technically minded so I went for the BT Whole Home WiFi discs. They are easy to set up and have offered very high levels of stable performance for us.

Removed User 26 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

If you have an old router around and can wire ethernet to it the cheapest solution is to configure is as an access point setup with the same SSID as your current Wifi setup.

I have a large house and manage with 3 routers cobbled together in this manner. It takes a bit of fiddling initially to ensure that you have the right bands setup to minimise any interference.

Most devices will autoswitch between access points once signal strength dips enough though it is not totally seamless - you may get a pause during streaming for a second or two.

Post edited at 13:18
 Garethza 26 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tenda-Nova-Whole-Home-System/dp/B07D9CC637

I got these a while ago as I was suffering from the same problem and it works a treat, no brainer really as long as you have somewhere to plug them in you can essentially extend your range infinitely!

 Jeek 26 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

We had a similar problem in our house with some devices not working well far from the router. After a bit of research went for the TP link deco m5 which seemed a good balance between features and price. Was easy to setup and has been working well.

 kathrync 26 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

Dad uses the Netgear Orbi mesh system and seems very pleased with it.

My own approach is as Hardonicus described - as my house is small I only needed one additional access point, for which I am using an old router configured as an access point and broadcasting the same SSID as primary router.

 galpinos 26 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

Me!

Struggled with home wifi when the pandemic hit and I ended up fulltime from home. Wifi use was pretty critical as I'm using 3D design packages on a remote server and I've ended up working from the loft in a three storey edwardian brick house with the cheap supplied router on the ground floor.

I stumped for a TP-Link Deco M5 (3 pack) (£120 at the time, about £150 at the mo) . We have one on each floor, alternating front to back of the house. I have been very impressed. I have no idea if it's the best on the market but I get minimum 50Mb/s up and 10Mb/s across the house and garden now, often it's a lot better. Doddle to set up and it's got quite a few handy features built into the app as well.

Would recommend!

 Sam W 26 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

Interested for our house.  My only previous experience of meshed wifi was about 7 years ago, think it was an Open Mesh system.  Once connected to an access point, devices tended to hang on to it even if another one with stronger signal was available, so it wasn't much use if you were wandering around the building.

Has this problem now been solved?  Can you walk round the house on a video call and seamlessly jump from one strong signal to the next?

 Garethza 26 Aug 2021
In reply to Sam W:

yes that is pretty much how it works, it swaps to the stronger signal automatically

 Kryank 26 Aug 2021
In reply to Jeek:

Been using the Deco M5 too have 3 units and they cured the WiFi issues we were having with virgin media (and 4 WiFi mad kids!). Been really happy with them.

 ben b 27 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

We have a big house built like a faraday cage (suboptimal for wifi coverage...). We went with Netgear Orbi mesh and it has been excellent; easy setup, get about 250-500Mbs over wifi round the house most places, dropping to 100 when it's poor i.e. still very good. RBR50 I think, one base unit, one satellite, 700m2 house over two floors. Even Mrs B is happy as it just works.

b

In reply to steve taylor:

I’ve got a Linksys system. It works well but when it goes wrong even with their customer services assistance I found it difficult to get working. I’ve had it for just over 2 years and it’s stopped working twice. I got an independent engineer out both times and they managed to fix it. If you’re good with tech you’ll save money on call outs. My system cost about £350.

 yorkshireman 27 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

Another one with the M5. I bought 3 to start with and then added 3 more M9s as we're on three floors including a basement and I wanted WiFi to leak out to the garden areas too.

Works well and I'm fairly happy. I'm tempted to switch to the Google ones as they can be Nest hubs too (we've a few Google Nests and Sonos speakers with Google so have gone into that ecosystem).

We're renovating the house so will try to put ethernet back channel to the WiFi points in hard to reach places like the basement.

I'm tech savvy but life is too short to muck around trying to DIY home networks. I gave up on that long ago and buying out of the box equipment will save you tonnes of aggro. 

 JoshOvki 27 Aug 2021
In reply to Garethza:

This is the same route I've gone down, I could have cobbled something together but this was play and play.

 henwardian 27 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

I've got 6 mesh units set up to extend one network and my experience is that it's patchy. Like, individual units lose connection or just randomly drop out pretty frequently (and they are definitely not too far from one another), sometimes needing to be power cycled to get the connection back and if you want to extend even a pretty small distance, you will find yourself having to place 2 or 3 of them in line, at which point you double or triple the number of times your connection drops out because one unit or another is having a paddy. I can't comment on whether you can get better results by hard-wiring them with ethernet cable - that might create a more reliable network.

Mine are TP-link Deco units. M5 and M4.

(also the M5s run pretty hot so it's worth putting them somewhere with good air movement and not next to anything particularly flammable).

 StefanB 27 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

After years of fiddling around with cheap extended, second routers, etc., I forked out for this kit here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Amplifi-Ubiquiti-System-AFI-HD-UK-Version/dp/B07G7...

I am a computer scientist and know how to set up networks, but just couldn't be bothered anymore. This just plugs in and sets itself up and keeps working. 

OP steve taylor 28 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

Thanks for the responses. I was leaning towards the Orbi (because they have an outdoor version in their range), but the Deco is a cheaper alternative and I could put one near to the garden to achieve that objective. My techie son is steering me away from the Google nest version as their customer service is (apparently) terrible and they seem happy to make over the air changes that can "brick" your system. They are cheaper though...

It's still a significant investment, so I'll keep researching. 

 climber david 29 Aug 2021
In reply to steve taylor:

Another vote for TP Link. I have the M4, paid £100 for a 3 pack on amazon. Really easy to set up (basically sets itself up).

What is good about them is you have the option to have wireless or wired backhaul. For maximum performance you want to hard wire them together with an ethernet cable but to be honest, I have 1 wired and 1 wireless and the performance of all 3 is great. I only went to the effort of hard wiring one of them because we have a desktop, network printer and laptop work station upstairs that I wanted to hard wire and that is where the node was going to go anyway so just plugged it in to a switch because it was there. The one in the conservatory that mainly covers the garden and garage just uses wireless backhaul and I don't notice any performance difference browsing/streaming when I'm in the garden compared to upstairs


New Topic
This topic has been archived, and won't accept reply postings.
Loading Notifications...