Help a numpty set up her home network...!

[katie279]

Ok.

Setup:
Have these areas in the house:
- House - 3 stories around 3,000 sq ft
- Garden Office - all insulated with ethernet going to it
- patio and BBQ area in back garden
- orchard/lawn in front garden

I want wifi everywhere as I have various devices, sonos outdoors for parties etc

Current Setup:
I currently have an Orbi mesh network which has been very good to be fair to it.

It has one main hub in the hall and then four other satellites on each floor

I've also got an external satellite that's weatherproof etc, so this covers the front garden nicely.

The challenges
For whatever reason, Netgear have an advised limit of up to 6 devices.
For whatever other reason, Netgear appear to also have discontinued the external satellite in the UK/Europe.

The ask
What would a networking guru do??

- Should I get some other external routers and just set up an 'external wifi' network? (only problem here is the constantly flipping of devices between the two different networks)
- Can I somehow connect non netgear routers to the same wifi network?
- Is there a better wifi network I should be looking at?

Any help much appreciated, I'm a bit of an amateur when it comes to wifi/networking!

 

[bledd]

PoE switch, connected to router. Then Unifi 6 Lite access points connected via ethernet back to that PoE switch.

PoE means they will only need a network cable to provide power and data to them.

Mesh networks are poor at best in comparison.

 

[WJA96]

If you have wired Ethernet in your garden room then a Ubiquiti UniFi U6-Mesh or UAP-HDFlex or UAP-AC-Mesh or UAP-AC-Mesh Pro are all outdoors rated so that’s the garden sorted. And then as @bledd says, UniFi U6-lites, U6-IW or U6-Mesh on each floor. All wired back to a UniFi PoE switch and fed from your existing router or add a router from the UniFi range eg. UniFi Dream Router or UniFi Dream Machine. Or someone else’s router - I like an Untangle Firewall Appliance and pfSense is also good.

But if you stick with the UniFi Dream Router, a small PoE switch and some U6 access points you’ll pretty much be where you need to be.

 

[bledd]

To save a bit of cash, can just use any brand switch. If you want 4x wireless access points, then a 5 port Netgear unmanaged PoE switch would do the same job.

You can keep your existing router, just disable WiFi on it after setting up the Unifi access points.

This would be the best cheapest option.

Edit, having re-read your thread, you could just get any other brand external device. If you give it the same SSID and password as existing setup, your devices will just pick the strongest.

 

[WJA96]

To save a bit of cash, can just use any brand switch. If you want 4x wireless access points, then a 5 port Netgear unmanaged PoE switch would do the same job.

You can keep your existing router, just disable WiFi on it after setting up the Unifi access points.

This would be the best cheapest option.

Edit, having re-read your thread, you could just get any other brand external device. If you give it the same SSID and password as existing setup, your devices will just pick the strongest.

What are you suggesting for the controller?

 

[bledd]

Don't need one, the Unifi app on phone is good enough for most.

 

[WJA96]

Don't need one, the Unifi app on phone is good enough for most.

I didn’t realise they’d improved it so it works with more than one access point. Good to know.

 

[sityeuropa]

Look out for 802.11r support for routers, extenders, powerlines.
One single SSID but supports seamless switching to the closest access point.

I use OpenWRT routers and set the 802.11r mobility domain to be the same.

Now I'm never on the wrong access point.

 

[CaNsA]

The challenges
For whatever reason, Netgear have an advised limit of up to 6 devices.
For whatever other reason, Netgear appear to also have discontinued the external satellite in the UK/Europe.

Hi, Just to clarify, are Netgear advising 6 wireless clients connected to the network or 6 Orbi satellites ?
I only ask because I can't see there being an advised limit of 6 clients.
Cheers

 

[WJA96]

Don't need one, the Unifi app on phone is good enough for most.

I’ve been playing about with this and without the controller you can only set up one access point at a time. So the OP with 2-4 access points would be doing a lot of configuring. In effect the system runs as multiple separate access points rather than a UniFi system. Unless the OP is desperate to save £60 on a Cloud Key, I’d get a Cloud Key or go with the UDR for the router and one of the access points. Given that the UDR contains the equivalent of a £150 U6-Pro access point and the £60 UniFi Cloud Key as well as a managed switch with one PoE port it seems pretty decent value to me.

 

[katie279]

Ok, thanks for everyone's replies - really useful!

So if I'm following, I think I have three options (but do correct me if I've misunderstood):

1) Replace whole orbi network with UniFi PoE solution

2) create an outdoor UniFi network with the Sam SSID as Orbi network and it'd switch to strongest automatically

3) Look for OpenWRT routers and set up network with them

If I have followed correctly, then it feels like option two is a no regrets way to dip my toes into this UniFi world?

I do like the whole PoE thing, that's really neat and would save a lot of wires around the place (only annoying thing is I'll need to replace all the switches in my house!)

CaNsA - for clarity, it's satellites - definitely not devices! (Goodness we've got 150+ devices in our house!). Originally it was 3-4 satellites and then people found that more worked, but Netgear have basically said no guarantee of things working after that...

 

[Armageus]

Can't believe you'd need 6 access points even for a 3000sq ft property, especially given that 3 floors the signal propagates up and down if placed on a first floor ceiling for example.

How are the orbis connected currently? If they connect via wireless mesh, do they have Ethernet ports and work with wired backhaul?

If so that will reduce interference (as the wireless backhaul although a separate radio is still 5ghz I believe), and would give you more option with regards to positioning (as they can be further apart, as don't need to see each other)

 

[katie279]

Hi,

Yes - it's a bit of a mission! Few points:

1) as per OP - one satellite is in a totally separate building that is totally insulated so no signal gets through from outside.

2) one is an outdoor satellite - again the signal is very weak trying to get through the walls

3) two of the satellites are the 'other side' of a big central brick wall that runs through the house (lounge and gym), so this kills WiFi signal pretty comprehensively - these are ethernet wired satellites.

Other than that, it's just one on each floor more or less...?

 

[WJA96]

As the information emerges the OP doesn’t sound like a numpty at all. A fully cabled home and garden isn’t numpty. Put a U6-Mesh in your back garden and power it off a PoE injector and configure it from the phone app and you have what you need. Sorted.

 

[CaNsA]

As the information emerges the OP doesn’t sound like a numpty at all.

I don't know how you feel about it but I feel cheated and lied to.

 

[WJA96]

I don't know how you feel about it but I feel cheated and lied to.

It's the internet. Get over it. She's probably an FBI agent.

 

[katie279]

Heheh! Well I'm certainly a numpty compared to you guys - I knew enough when we bought the place to just put ethernet everywhere I could (even when we built our greenhouse, I ran ethernet to it!).

So option two it is I think and I get to play with this U6mesh stuff! I'd imagine, it'll also let me eventually put those in the internals to replace the orbis, so I can phase that (although I'm sure by then you'll be telling me to use a U9mesh or something.... !)

Thanks for all your help, really appreciated and think this has solved my problem - plus I've found out about PoE injectors!

PS I was looking at these PoE switches - with the watts they offer, we can't be a million miles from having light PCs running off ethernet also...???