Gone to deep, way over my head

[Blujelly]

So I done a post the other day about a new router a bought. I’ve been looking into it since and I’m currently with Virgin 350mb 3.0 hub, which is a dual band router.

The current router is D-Link AX100 and the reason for the purchase was to help out my poor ring devices that struggled with signal strength with the VM hub. This has been tested in a more central place in my home and works 10x better, it works just as well where its currently placed. I was thinking for me to offload some of the WiFi devices it means I’ve got to do a lot of drilling and cable management to get them to the new placed router via Ethernet.

So I’m thinking should I upgrade to tri band? Is it worth it for me, is this going to be over kill? I’m thinking it would it be easier just to get a mesh router such as a Linksys MR8300 with an additional node like the WHW0301? That way I can offload about 4 WiFi devices directly to the router then let the rest use WiFi.

I’ve got 12 devices total at this moment running of the routers WiFi, except for one which is Hive. The others consist of 4 ring devices, Alexa, robotic hoover, Apple TV, my iPhone, harmony huh and 2 unknown devices.

Have I gone to far thinking this through, is there a much simpler setup, so I need a slap to the face?

 

[Eliagon]

What aspect of performance are you seeking to upgrade?

If signal strength then getting an extra 5GHz band may offer limited benefits, due to steep drop-off of signal strength due to walls etc. If you need speed then tri band may help, as long as the signal can get there strong enough.

Adding more WiFi networks in the same area, in the same spectrum, will just cause signal confliction and can hurt performance in some circumstances (or just offer poor retiurns on investment).

Have you considered a powerline adapter? The performance of these depends on your house wiring / ring-mains etc, but I found that it added 1-2ms of ping and offered 700-800mbps when crossing ring-mains.

 

[the-evaluator]

So I done a post the other day about a new router a bought. I’ve been looking into it since and I’m currently with Virgin 350mb 3.0 hub, which is a dual band router.

The current router is D-Link AX100 and the reason for the purchase was to help out my poor ring devices that struggled with signal strength with the VM hub. This has been tested in a more central place in my home and works 10x better, it works just as well where its currently placed. I was thinking for me to offload some of the WiFi devices it means I’ve got to do a lot of drilling and cable management to get them to the new placed router via Ethernet.

So I’m thinking should I upgrade to tri band? Is it worth it for me, is this going to be over kill? I’m thinking it would it be easier just to get a mesh router such as a Linksys MR8300 with an additional node like the WHW0301? That way I can offload about 4 WiFi devices directly to the router then let the rest use WiFi.

I’ve got 12 devices total at this moment running of the routers WiFi, except for one which is Hive. The others consist of 4 ring devices, Alexa, robotic hoover, Apple TV, my iPhone, harmony huh and 2 unknown devices.

Have I gone to far thinking this through, is there a much simpler setup, so I need a slap to the face?

If the new router is working fine then there's probably little point making any more changes. Other than the plan to hard wire things, that's a good plan so I'd do it if you can.

offered 700-800mbps when crossing ring-mains.

Is that a real world 700-800Mbps measured with something like iperf or a manufacturer/configuration utility quoted figure? They're very different things.

 

[Blujelly]

What aspect of performance are you seeking to upgrade?

If signal strength then getting an extra 5GHz band may offer limited benefits, due to steep drop-off of signal strength due to walls etc. If you need speed then tri band may help, as long as the signal can get there strong enough.

Adding more WiFi networks in the same area, in the same spectrum, will just cause signal confliction and can hurt performance in some circumstances (or just offer poor retiurns on investment).

Have you considered a powerline adapter? The performance of these depends on your house wiring / ring-mains etc, but I found that it added 1-2ms of ping and offered 700-800mbps when crossing ring-mains.

At the time it was really just to make sure the ring devices that couldn’t be hardwired were getting enough signal strength as they’re both outside. Just means now I’ve got to run a fair bit of cable and do some cable management because the of the routers to be new location. Just thinking is there an easier way, like the setup I’ve mentioned with a mesh router and node/satellite which could work out better. Just didn’t know if for the amount of devices I had, was it worth like at duel or tri band, or if it’s overkill for the devices that I have

If the new router is working fine then there's probably little point making any more changes. Other than the plan to hard wire things, that's a good plan so I'd do it if you can.

To be honest think I’d prefer to keep a router next to the old VM hub then a mesh system that I can move closer to the door. Just don’t know what setup would be best for the devices I have.

 

[the-evaluator]

To be honest think I’d prefer to keep a router next to the old VM hub then a mesh system that I can move closer to the door. Just don’t know what setup would be best for the devices I have.

Are you having any problems with the setup as it is right now? It sounds like it's working well and if that's the case then stick with it. Mesh systems aren't the silver bullet that many people seem to think they are, they're a compromise that can work better than some of the other options but they're definitely not the first option I'd look to.

Getting things connected by ethernet is a good move though.

 

[peige]

Are you actually having any problems with the current setup? Sounds to me like its fine!

As above, Ethernet is king really and you want that for any solid connections like your main desktop or gaming console but after that modern wifi gives a good enough signal for most portable devices. Personally my desktop is wired, as is the diskstation, tv's and Playstation but there are 40 devices connected to my Mesh system

 

[Blujelly]

Are you having any problems with the setup as it is right now? It sounds like it's working well and if that's the case then stick with it. Mesh systems aren't the silver bullet that many people seem to think they are, they're a compromise that can work better than some of the other options but they're definitely not the first option I'd look to.

Getting things connected by ethernet is a good move though.

As of now it works better the VM hub, I will need to move it more central to the house, which means drilling holes and running Ethernet for the 4 devices I’d need to connect, which is why I was thinking so I really want to do that, when I could get a mesh router then add on additional to help with the signal strength?

Are you actually having any problems with the current setup? Sounds to me like its fine!

As above, Ethernet is king really and you want that for any solid connections like your main desktop or gaming console but after that modern wifi gives a good enough signal for most portable devices. Personally my desktop is wired, as is the diskstation, tv's and Playstation but there are 40 devices connected to my Mesh system

yeah it’s working well can’t knock it, as mentioned above about the workings of running the Ethernet cables, just didn’t know if the new setup I was thinking of going for, and the whole dual and tri band is overkill with my say 14-15 connected devices?

 

[the-evaluator]

As of now it works better the VM hub, I will need to move it more central to the house, which means drilling holes and running Ethernet for the 4 devices I’d need to connect, which is why I was thinking so I really want to do that, when I could get a mesh router then add on additional to help with the signal strength?

Ah, I assumed it was already in the final location. Ok, so moving it to a central location is a good move. Why not get a long ethernet cable so you can move it temporarily to the new location and see how it performs, just leave the cable loose on the floor for now. If it's working well there, then great, move it.

If not then it's possibly time to think again. The nice thing about a mesh system is the wireless uplink option so you don't have to have the nodes connected back to your router. That's a compromise though so a much better option would be another access point located somewhere else in the house that's cabled back to the router. You mentioned running cables anyway so to me that'd be a much better option.

I wouldn't worry about 15 devices, that's fairly low.

 

[Eliagon]

If the new router is working fine then there's probably little point making any more changes. Other than the plan to hard wire things, that's a good plan so I'd do it if you can.



Is that a real world 700-800Mbps measured with something like iperf or a manufacturer/configuration utility quoted figure? They're very different things.

I had a 1200 or 1300 model

 

[Eliagon]

At the time it was really just to make sure the ring devices that couldn’t be hardwired were getting enough signal strength as they’re both outside. Just means now I’ve got to run a fair bit of cable and do some cable management because the of the routers to be new location. Just thinking is there an easier way, like the setup I’ve mentioned with a mesh router and node/satellite which could work out better. Just didn’t know if for the amount of devices I had, was it worth like at duel or tri band, or if it’s overkill for the devices that I have




To be honest think I’d prefer to keep a router next to the old VM hub then a mesh system that I can move closer to the door. Just don’t know what setup would be best for the devices I have.

Will I just googled and found you can have 250 devices in general. News to me, but I think we are both safe from device saturation for a while!

 

[the-evaluator]

I had a 1200 or 1300 model

And? There's no way you were getting 700-800Mbps *real world throughput* out of them. Absolutely no chance.

 

[the-evaluator]

Will I just googled and found you can have 250 devices in general. News to me, but I think we are both safe from device saturation for a while!

I think the 250 limit is probably down to the LAN subnet size which can easily be increased. I'd expect the kit to start struggling some time before hitting 250 clients though.

 

[XeNoNF50]

And? There's no way you were getting 700-800Mbps *real world throughput* out of them. Absolutely no chance.

This is wifi using pce-ac88 wifi card and asus ax92u single unit router 1 room away from the router on my gigabit hyperoptic internet plan

 

[the-evaluator]

Where did the powerline adapters sit in that setup?

 

[Blujelly]

Ah, I assumed it was already in the final location. Ok, so moving it to a central location is a good move. Why not get a long ethernet cable so you can move it temporarily to the new location and see how it performs, just leave the cable loose on the floor for now. If it's working well there, then great, move it.

If not then it's possibly time to think again. The nice thing about a mesh system is the wireless uplink option so you don't have to have the nodes connected back to your router. That's a compromise though so a much better option would be another access point located somewhere else in the house that's cabled back to the router. You mentioned running cables anyway so to me that'd be a much better option.

I wouldn't worry about 15 devices, that's fairly low.

yeah I thought as much in terms of the devices and overkill etc. I might just buy a mesh router to give me the option if I want to move things around, at least that way I can just add it on top, make it a little bit future proof. Might see how the current router performs next to the old one for now, as anything will be better the VM Hub

Will I just googled and found you can have 250 devices in general. News to me, but I think we are both safe from device saturation for a while!

just as I thought was getting a it over my head on it

 

[Blujelly]

Ok so plan B hasn’t gone to plan at all, if anything it’s worse. Even though I have the router setup were VM hub is and a node central to the house, signal strength and speed tests and some devices is actually somehow worse…

looks like I’m better if centrally placing the previous router in the house. Or unless anyone has any better suggestions?