What Mesh System?

Richeh

Richeh

Richeh

Soldato
Joined
24 Jul 2003
Posts
3,497
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
 
Last edited:
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!
 
I was looking at the XE75 but was slightly concerned how expensive it is considering it's a 4+ year old product. Also looking at the Eero's.

Of course I would run a cable if it was an option. However, recent garden, patio and gazebo 'upgrades' have made this impossible without ripping up a lot as can't have a visible wire. Just not on the cards.

I tested today on the porch of my cabin, I can get 10-14MB with the BT home discs at the moment. Back of cabin (14-16 feet) 0.5-2. I do also need a new mesh system due to one of the discs failing and currently operating 2 networks in the house but now with new video doorbell cameras the disc can't reach the back gate one, only the router can. But with a Deco I could get an outdoor unit and if say the new the speed is 30mb on the porch, powerline it in, or even failing that a wifi repeater on the outdoor power socket of the cabin?

Yes I wish I could do a bloody cable lol
 
Last edited:
I use a triple BE25 with wired backhaul. They are about £230 for a triple pack last I checked.

No 6GHz band on them but if I want max speed then I'll use a cable. They work. Just plug them in, put them in AP mode, and you're off!

My BE25 reaches a reasonable distance into the garden from the first floor. It would easily reach an outdoor unit for wireless backhaul if running cables is a problem.

Powerline is another option if you can put the adapter in the house and the cabin on the same electrical circuit. Once you start crossing circuits, the speeds fall off a cliff.
 
aaronyuri said:
Powerline is another option if you can put the adapter in the house and the cabin on the same electrical circuit. Once you start crossing circuits, the speeds fall off a cliff.
Click to expand...

You can’t. Or at least not if your cabin was installed with any common sense or attempt to comply with wiring regs.

If it’s done properly, you’d need to cross at least two DB’s to do it, and from actual testing powerline bandwidth drops like a stone just jumping breakers on the same board, or significantly between two sockets on the same spur.

Op, playing devils advocate, direct bury cable is a thing, assuming you can go down the side of patio/paving/fence line, it doesn’t need to be that deep - I had to run a 50m CCTV feed to a gate post last week, that is only an inch under the surface in places and exposed in others, because that’s the limit of what was possible without getting a mini digger and a chainsaw.

As to Deco’s, I wouldn’t really get excited about age, focus on what they can do. Last time I tested wireless node to node via iperf on my X10/x20 set-up it broke 700mbit from the middle floor to the top floor. Nothing your average mobile device will be pulling is going to trouble that, and coverage is decent. I’d take it over Eero or Nest anyday for AP/mesh usage.
 
I was a bit vague about the powerline bit. I simply meant if I could get a decent signal with new mesh on the porch of the cabin I could use the outdoor socket to run powerline inside as I have a few spare powerline adapters. It was literally if the signal was strong outside but not in I could use those. The power for the cabin was installed correctly and a completely separate fuse box as it should be but means powerline does not work from the house to the cabin.

Can't run a cable. Can't make it anymore clear.

I will just get a set of Mesh, hope it is better than the current 6 year old discs at the distance required and see. Worse case I will get an outdoor access point for the cabin but will just go with a new mesh setup first.
 
Richeh said:
I was a bit vague about the powerline bit. I simply meant if I could get a decent signal with new mesh on the porch of the cabin I could use the outdoor socket to run powerline inside as I have a few spare powerline adapters. It was literally if the signal was strong outside but not in I could use those. The power for the cabin was installed correctly and a completely separate fuse box as it should be but means powerline does not work from the house to the cabin.

Can't run a cable. Can't make it anymore clear.

I will just get a set of Mesh, hope it is better than the current 6 year old discs at the distance required and see. Worse case I will get an outdoor access point for the cabin but will just go with a new mesh setup first.
Click to expand...
Ah, if you have done it properly and have a separate consumer unit then a house-bound powerline adapter is a no-go. Once you start crossing circuits and going through the consumer unit's busbar it's useless. Not everyone does it this way which is why I suggested it with the caveat of the same circuit. :D

Powerline from the exterior of your cabin could work if you can get the WiFi into it somehow. Not sure how that will go with the Deco as they use the wired ports for back haul/uplink only, IIRC, not for LAN extension.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom