Roaming/Mesh wifi confusion

[mpj88]

Hi all,

Hoping you can clear this up for me. Getting confused between mesh and roaming wifi. I thought it was Mesh I wanted but now I think its just roaming.

Current have internet connection into one corner of the house through a virgin media box set to modem only mode. Then I have a TP-link wifi router. This has a wired connection to a netgear router set as an access point at the opposite corner of the house. Each of these devices has different wireless SSID.

As they're both in corners of the house there's points in the house where wireless clients cling onto one of the routers where they could have a better connection by switching to the other network. I see "mesh" networks advertised by TP-link (e.g. deco x20, m9 plus) and netgear (e.g. rbk50, rbk852) which offer seamless transitioning between access points throughout a house. However I think the "mesh" part of these wifi systems is the wireless backhaul (not really needed in current house, maybe in future) between access points. Researching ubiquiti devices has made me realised what I think I need is better roaming. As their mesh wifi products are for stadiums etc.

Any comments?

 

[mpj88]

snip

Thank you very much for the detailed reply. Yes, your understanding re cable between the two points is correct.

The other thing is the netgear router I'm using as an access point is a really old DGN2000. The only reason I actually set this up is because our Logitech harmony systems was playing up and I realised the harmony hub was in a wifi deadspot from the tp-link router. I really try to limit the devices using this access point as its so slow! So getting some new HW isnt an issue.

I've been researching the Ubiquiti eco system and interested to try it out. I've been thinking of trying to pick up a couple of AP AC lite or AP AC Pro. There's someone selling a edgerouter4 on the MM, so I could take the TP-link router out of the equation completely. Any advice re Ubiquiti products is welcome.

 

[mpj88]

Hadn't really thought about keep the TP-link just for routing purposes. It's an Archer C8 and 5 years old, so thought it was due replacement but guess it would still function fine as a router. I don't think I do anything overly fancy with my router, only port forwarding. If I need a VPN server I've run one on my NAS before. Not sure if I'm missing out on any other tricks?

The current house isn't that big, see floor plan below, red marks are locations of router and AP, with the router being upstairs . (We're thinking of moving hence why we have these drawn up!) Lounge is a single story extension. I was thinking I could potentially cover the whole house with one AP AC Pro in Bedroom 2. If not, 2 x AP AC lite, one is bedroom 2 and one in kitchen. It shouldn't be too difficult to get it ceiling mounted. See if SWMBO will notice a box on the ceiling.....