WiFi / Wireless Home Mesh Networks

[Cadder]

We have been struggling too long with stock ISP routers giving poor signal in the home. I think it's time we improve it with a WiFi mesh system. As I don't know much about them, I ask the good people of the forum for advice on what to look for, what to avoid and also which particular products are recommended.

Two extenders should be fine to give whole-home coverage.
To highlight the limits of my knowledge, some searching has revealed to me that WiFi 6 is best. Which other features should I look for in a decent Mesh system?

Hopefully there will be some good deals on these systems in the coming weeks.

 

[ChrisD.]

There has been about 20 variations of this thread posted over the past few months.

Get a proper standalone AP, mount it upstairs on the landing ceiling and hardwire it back to your ISP router. Use a PoE injector if you must. Turn off your ISP Wi-Fi. Then work from there, you'll likely find that it will cover the whole house without issue unless you own a mansion.

Most 'mesh' systems use half of the available bandwidth to talk to each other, unless you get a more expensive one with its own wireless or wired backhaul.

 

[Cadder]

Cheers @ChrisD. much appreciated!

 

[tangey]

Mesh is fine if your dealing with say 150M incoming internet. But once you start getting into 300M+, it's much better to hardwire the satellite ones back to the main one.

My problem is that I've got a 4 bedroom bungalow, I've 3 deco X50/X60 units in the house (all wired together), and I still have spots with little or no coverage. I put the X60 deco (has extra streams) in the loft kinda central, and one in one bedroom at the front of the house, and one in a bedroom at the back. All the interior walls in the house are solid, no plasterboard walls. From my limited experience it looks like 5Ghz can get thru 1 solid wall OK , but a 2nd one really hits it. Walking around the outside of the house, there are many places I get little bandwidth.

 

[Armageus]

Mesh is fine if your dealing with say 150M incoming internet. But once you start getting into 300M+, it's much better to hardwire the satellite ones back to the main one.

What has internet bandwidth got to do with wireless bandwidth?

I'm assuming you mean you want full internet bandwidth available to a single device via wireless. This is a largely pointless exercise for most people - the whole point of having more bandwidth is to enable multiple devices to all have faster internet.

 

[tangey]

What has internet bandwidth got to do with wireless bandwidth?

I'm assuming you mean you want full internet bandwidth available to a single device via wireless. This is a largely pointless exercise for most people - the whole point of having more bandwidth is to enable multiple devices to all have faster internet.

In summary because the more wireless mesh hops you are away from the incoming internet, the more it will reduce the maximum speed you can get from the internet, the higher your core internet speed, the less wireless hops you need to be way before you internet speed at that location does not match your core internet speed.

I downloaded the open speedtest server that someone on here kindly gave pointers to, to enable internal testing of bandwidth (i.e. not testing internet bandwidth). Given the nature of my hardware, the theoritical max output of my speedtest server is 1G (my router has 1G ports). When used my iphone to do an internal speed test when it was connected to a wireless node that was hardwired to the router, I got very close to the 1G max. When I connected to a mesh that was 1 wireless mesh hop away from the mesh that was connected to the router, the max thruput from my speedtest server to the iphone dropped to around 600M. When I connected a cable between the first mesh and the 2nd mesh (to which my iphone was connected wirelessly), I got very close to the 1G again.

Now if the broadband connection is say 150M or 300M, the fact that I can get 600M on one wireless hop means the wireless mesh system isn't the choke point, however if I have 1G broadband connection, I'll not get 1G if I'm a wireless hop away from the broadband router. If the wireless device is 2 hops away, I imagine the degradation will be more significant.

Depending on the particular layout, the internet may come into a room that is relatively remote from where the main home office PCs are located. In that scenario the max intenet thruput of the main workhorse devices will be reduced if they are a wireless hop away from a high speed internet connection. Depending on the nature of the work, that might be a significant impediment.