Mesh WIFI

Tyler Steele · 24 May 2020 at 22:23

So i am having patchy WIFI issues in my house and have been told that Mesh is probably what would be best.

I was recommended Tenda MW3 or MW6 but i just wanted to check, are these still viable? How well do they work?

Or is there any better recommendations?

TechMinerUK · 24 May 2020 at 23:34

Tyler Steele said:
So i am having patchy WIFI issues in my house and have been told that Mesh is probably what would be best.
I was recommended Tenda MW3 or MW6 but i just wanted to check, are these still viable? How well do they work?
Or is there any better recommendations?

Personally from using mesh based solutions at work and trying them at home I'm still not sold on them, if you must I would go for something like UniFi and set them up with a controller in mesh mode however if you can I would probably run a cable and mount a seperate AP or even use a homeplug and AP.

For me mesh hasn't yielded much luck with speeds being average to poor but that might just be me

Tyler Steele · 25 May 2020 at 00:20

TechMinerUK said:
Personally from using mesh based solutions at work and trying them at home I'm still not sold on them, if you must I would go for something like UniFi and set them up with a controller in mesh mode however if you can I would probably run a cable and mount a seperate AP or even use a homeplug and AP.

For me mesh hasn't yielded much luck with speeds being average to poor but that might just be me

Cables will be going in eventually. However that will be after lockdown. In addition i need to improve WIFI for phone coverage too.

Tyler Steele · 25 May 2020 at 00:21

TechMinerUK said:
Personally from using mesh based solutions at work and trying them at home I'm still not sold on them, if you must I would go for something like UniFi and set them up with a controller in mesh mode however if you can I would probably run a cable and mount a seperate AP or even use a homeplug and AP.

For me mesh hasn't yielded much luck with speeds being average to poor but that might just be me

What is an AP?

TechMinerUK · 25 May 2020 at 00:52

Tyler Steele said:
What is an AP?

Tyler Steele said:
Cables will be going in eventually. However that will be after lockdown. In addition i need to improve WIFI for phone coverage too.

AP means access point, it's just the wireless bit your devices will connect to. Personally based on your info so far I'd get some UniFi access points (AC ones) and use power line adapters whilst you wait for cables to be run

Cyber-Mav · 25 May 2020 at 06:49

I find meshing to be slow since ap to ap links are over wifi it eats into the available air bandwidth. Now i run multiple wired aps and speed is very good.

WJA96 · 25 May 2020 at 08:42

Cyber-Mav said:
I find meshing to be slow since ap to ap links are over wifi it eats into the available air bandwidth. Now i run multiple wired aps and speed is very good.

I honestly think first loss, least loss. I promise you. You’ll spend possibly hundreds of pounds and you’ll still have a slow Wireless LAN. Anyone who fits TV antennas for a living can run network cables. And given that they charge £100-£200 for a fitted TV antenna a couple of CAT6 cables shouldn’t be any more than that. Which is the price of a mesh system. Add £60-£100 for an additional access point and it will be more expensive initially, but you’ll have wired access all over the house and the best WLAN possible. First loss, least loss.

Cyber-Mav · 25 May 2020 at 11:56

Also some people cant run cables without ripping up carpets laminated flooring and floorboards so they have to rely on wifi.
Iv got some cable runs to do but wont bother until next house renovation happens. Dont want to rip up boards if i can avoid it.
Also wifi is getting faster. Could try bridging with 60ghz not sure how it deals with walls though.

WJA96 · 25 May 2020 at 12:29

Cyber-Mav said:
Also some people cant run cables without ripping up carpets laminated flooring and floorboards so they have to rely on wifi.
Iv got some cable runs to do but wont bother until next house renovation happens. Dont want to rip up boards if i can avoid it.
Also wifi is getting faster. Could try bridging with 60ghz not sure how it deals with walls though.

Like I said, you can spend money now and then again later. Any mesh system will ‘sort of’ work but it won’t ever carry data at decent speeds and your pings will be horrific. 60GHz might be an option but every wall it passes through will reduce the speed. But if you want to spend, don’t let me stop you.

Cyber-Mav · 26 May 2020 at 07:11

Not spending any more now. But wondering if i should replace my unifi ac pro with a nanohd...

Spit · 26 May 2020 at 22:20

I’ve just got one of these and I’m pleased so far...

https://amplifi.com/gamers-edition

Cyber-Mav · 29 May 2020 at 07:44

Just read up on wifi 6e so looks like now is a bad time to buy wifi stuff since 6ghz band routers will be available at the end of the year.

WJA96 · 29 May 2020 at 08:59

Did you read up on the range of WiFi 6e and it’s inability to penetrate walls? They’re kind of not mentioning that!

Just as 2.4GHz goes further than 5GHz, 5GHz goes further than 6GHz. So if you’re struggling with 5GHz signals now, it will be worse with 6GHz.

And 6GHz REALLY doesn’t like obstacles in its path. It will be PHENOMENALLY fast in the room the access point is in though, so all the more reason to cable up every room with CAT6 because you’re going to need 2.5GbE/5GbE/10GbE switches and routers to move all that data between rooms.

It’s the main reason I’m so impatient for the new UniFi UAP-IW6 to be released. And some sort of wireless client that can actually use 120 megabytes per second sustained data transfer rate.

HeadlessChicken · 29 May 2020 at 09:05

Cyber-Mav said:
Just read up on wifi 6e so looks like now is a bad time to buy wifi stuff since 6ghz band routers will be available at the end of the year.

Isn't that the case of every bit of tech, ever?

I can remember holding off Buying an AMD Athlon because the Barton's were round the corner, then the 64's came out

On topic, I just needed a no fuss solution for a family plus 2 peeps now WFH - 20ish wifi devices. Virgin superhub 3 at the front of a 1880's brick vitorian house, so major blackspots.Tried to fix with powerlines / wifi extenders, but was still crap (getting like 5mbps).

Really didn't want the fuss of holes / cables, so plumped for a Deco M5 solution. Dead easy, 80+ mbps in the areas I was getting 5, 30 mbps at the bottom of my 25m garden. 150+ mbps within a few meters of the 3 nodes.

I'm sure a wired / AP solution would squeeze a bit more oomph, but I'm genuinely happy with it for a quick and easy solution.

Guess it depends what your overall requirements are.

WJA96 · 29 May 2020 at 09:44

HeadlessChicken said:
Really didn't want the fuss of holes / cables, so plumped for a Deco M5 solution. Dead easy, 80+ mbps in the areas I was getting 5, 30 mbps at the bottom of my 25m garden. 150+ mbps within a few meters of the 3 nodes.

WJA96 said:
You’ll spend possibly hundreds of pounds and you’ll still have a slow Wireless LAN.

I think you make my point. You're probably on something like Virgin 100 or Virgin 350 and you're happy with 30-80Mbps? That's possibly useable but ultimately you cant use what you're paying for.

When I got my Tesla it wanted a decent WLAN connection for the over-the-air updates. So I went up in the attic. Pushed a CAT6 cable through the slots in the soffit (no drilling), pulled through about 3m of cable. Terminated the RJ45 on the access point end. Zip-tied the Unifi AP-AC-Mesh to the bathroom drain downpipe. Plugged it in. 7 white zip ties to tidy up the cable behind the white downpipe. Terminated a keystone jack in the attic, pushed it into the patch panel. 5 more zip ties to make the cable run tidy in the attic. Connected the patch lead from the patch panel to the PoE switch and then adopted the access point on the Unifi Controller. Literally an hour. Tops. 350Mbps on my iPhone 100m away (because it's clear line of sight). End result - the updates take minutes rather than hours.

Good WLAN isn't easy. But if you invest in infrastructure in your home you will be more satisfied later on. When I put my original network in it took a week of mess and it cost about £2000, but it's been utterly rock solid and no-one ever complains about the networking at all.

Of course sometimes it's not easy to explain to those you live with why you need to install a 3-phase mains supply so you can charge the car at home in under an hour....

d_brennen · 29 May 2020 at 09:52

Set up BT Whole Home 3 disk kit for the in-laws, very impressed with the performance. Aside from the set up app being quite janky, it's allowed them to have WiFi throughout their 3 story townhouse where the Virgin Hub was basically only useful on the first floor.

Haven't really speed tested what they get but it's more than good enough for them. Ring doorbell at the front was basically unusable as was their Echo Show in the kitchen. The Virgin Hub WiFi was abysmal

HeadlessChicken · 29 May 2020 at 11:33

WJA96 said:
I think you make my point. You're probably on something like Virgin 100 or Virgin 350 and you're happy with 30-80Mbps? That's possibly useable but ultimately you cant use what you're paying for.

Virgin 200 - so 150 from the nodes (only device I ever need that speed from is my desktop at the end of the 3 nodes. Connected via ethernet and 140 mbs is the lowest I've clocked), 180 at the closest node via wifi, is fine.

I think we assume everyone wants / needs ridiculous speed for everything - 99% of users couldn't give a monkeys (nor would they norice) if it's 30mbps or 300mbps, especially for mobile device usage. Appeciate that 1% is in this forum.

For a standard user who genuinely can't be bothered to research / drill / route cables etc., a £150 solution is spot on. 5 - 10 years ago I may have done the same as you, but priorities in life shift