What Mesh System?

Richeh

Richeh

Richeh

Soldato
Joined
24 Jul 2003
Posts
3,495
Location
South East Coast
Hello,

One of my BT Wifi discs died and I also now need to extend my wifi range a bit so it is time to upgrade with a few specific requests.

It is a 3 floor house, the 2gb fibre connection comes in the lower ground level at the back of the house. Directly above this on each floor is an ethernet port wired from down to a switch that the fibre router also plugs into. We have underfloor heating on the LGF and GF which makes any Wifi signal trying to go through pretty much unusable which is why I had the ethernet setup as I wanted that as a backhaul. Apart from the LGF the full 2GB is not needed on the other floors. 500mb-1GB is more than enough as long as it is stable.

The big issue is a cabin in our garden about 120 feet away. All the mesh devices are against the back side of the house so one solid wall to go through to the cabin and then the wood cabin wall.

I am wondering if a reasonable mesh system would reach the cabin without an outdoor device? It's strongest use in the cabin would be playing streaming services, YT and internet browsing etc nothing that would exceed even a 40-50mb connection.

I also am not looking to spend hundreds and hundreds to thousands on say Ubiquiti as the house was decent enough with the 7 year old wifi discs but now one has gone and I want to extend the range I thought I would ask here due to the vast number of options available.

Any help appreciated.
 
Deco is cheap and does the job. I wouldn't go hard set on WiFi 7 devices as the implementations are so varied and immature.

Run a shielded cat6 cable to your outbuilding if you can. Alternatively, look at an outdoor suitable AP.
 
Exactly as above, Deco is inexpensive and performs well in pretty much everything I have installed it in, so much so, it replaced my Unifi set-up for WiFi. Is it more limited? Yes, set-up is via the app, you can’t tweak channels other than manually triggering the automatic scanning, and you only get 3 SSID’s (main, IoT and guest), but at least in AP mode, my X20/50’s pull very respectable numbers out of the box. TPL have a long proven track record when it comes to Deco and support, and if you do have an issue, they are probably one of the easiest and most helpful OEM’s I have interacted with - as long as you can adequately articulate your issue and it’s reproducible, they will go above and beyond to help you resolve it. Price wise, you can pick up a 3 pack of x10’s for £115 or less, I run one per floor on my 3 storey.

In fairness, the counter argument to that is do you actually need mesh? Most mobile devices in this day and age will jump to the strongest signal anyway. Something like a Unifi AC-Lite/Pro or better yet a NanoHD is under £30 used, can be fed via PoE, and will also put in solid work.

Also to echo the advice about laying a cable, personally I prefer fiber between buildings, as any idiot can lay it in a manner to comply with electrical regulations. We live in a world where fiber is inexpensive and 1/2.5/10Gb switches with SFP+ ports are available for very little. External walls on properties tend to be double course of bricks, and generally a solid wall really doesn’t do WiFi any favours, let ankle going from the front to the back of the property, and then through a log cabin wall.
 
Thanks for the input. I understand sending a cable to the cabin is best but it's not an option unfortunately.

I was hoping there was a normal inside mesh system that could reach the cabin. I get 10ish'mb on the porch of the cabin but 14 feet further into the cabin no signal that you can use.

As my BT discs are over 7 years old now I was hoping the tech had improved enough to push another 20 feet with some force or is this not the case? lol
 
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The legal power limit is the legal power limit, and the focus now is on higher frequencies, 2.4Ghz stands the best chance of what you want, higher frequency stuff will just get progressively worse.

The other option is a P2P link, something like a pair of NanoStation M5’s. One mounted on the outside wall with the other on the cabin with a line of site creating a fixed wireless link. Much more modern options exist, but a pair of those would likely be under £100 used.
 
As above, consider setting up a dedicated wireless link to the outhouse... Cable is a cheaper option and should be considered even if it requires some manual labour.
 
I've always used Eero mesh systems, set and forget which is exactly what I am after. Relatively affordable, updated on a regular basis.
 
You could buy a mesh system, carefully open and test it and send it back if it doesn't work for you.
Deco XE75 is what i have and i find it fantastic.
Or run a cable out!
 
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