Which Mesh WIFI?

[Midget Mafia]

We own a 3 storey townhouse, with a Netgear Nighthawk R7000 on the ground floor. My wife is moaning about dropped video conferencing calls blah, blah and wants me to sort it out.

What's the best mesh type system I could install? Ideally I'd want to have one unit on each floor. Ethernet backchannel is only possible on the ground floor.

TIA.

 

[Midget Mafia]

I have read all the reviews and think we'll go for these:



If they suck I'll send them back.

 

[Midget Mafia]

Really, £660?

I know. Believe me, I am not happy about it, but all of the other options are a compromise in one way or another.

Ideally I'd just have the house hard wired and use APs, but I don't know of a firm that would do that in a residence in a way that wouldn't require redecoration etc. But even that wouldn't deal with the number of WiFi devices we have; it can only cope with so many. A more capable router is £400 on it's own.

 

[Midget Mafia]

Holy moly that's an expensive way to sort out patchy WiFi for dropped video calls.

I'm sorry you can't find an electrician or aerial fitter who will run an ethernet cable up and down behind a drainpipe with a discrete hole in the wall on each floor and put a face plate on the other side. That would require minimal to no decoration.

I have to disagree with your assertion with APs not handing the number of WiFi devices you have. Some modestly priced ones will cope with hundreds of clients per access point. I've probably got more than the average with 113 wireless devices across 4 APs at any one time and my Ubiquiti's don't break a sweat.

Still if you're set on mesh then that looks the creme-de-la-creme and I genuinely hope it works well for you - I just hope your wife's video conferencing device supports WiFi 6 to make use of its capabilities. It's definitely a better option than a more 'capable' router which still won't be able to break the laws of physics and transmit/receive imbalances over a large distance in a sizable house.

It's not the APs, it's the router that concerns me. Unless I just don't understand the way this works and am about to make an expensive mistake.

Which APs and router would you suggest in your scenario?

 

[Midget Mafia]

So a quick update.

I took the advice given and didn't go for the NetGear Orbi. Instead I've bought an Ubiquiti Dream Machine, and I have a firm visiting mid-August to run 3 cables for Ubiquiti APs.

Hopefully that'll sort our network issues out

Thanks for the help!