Mesh Wifi-Hype?

[Slappy]

We moved recently, into a slightly larger house than before, and the Wifi in certain parts of the house blowwwwwws. Specifically, the great room where 80% of our time is spent. The router (Fios) sits in the basement on the opposite corner of the house and it's not too far, but there's a distinct, sudden signal dropoff as soon as I cross the threshold to the great room. I mean, from getting 60+Mbps to single digits.

I got a Netgear extender (N300) and that helped some, get mid 20Mbps now but I've started looking at these Mesh Wifi kits like the Luma/ Orbi/Linksys Velop, etc. They're pricy, so wondering if anybody has installed them or has any concrete feedback.

Oh, the other solution I tried was to use my Netgear R6100 dual band to push a stronger signal, from the 2nd basement that's directly under the great room. There was already Cat6e run from the router basement, so I threw a tiny 5-port switch in and the signals from the R6100 are (not surprisingly) much better. The 5Ghz band drops out a lot however, not sure if changing channels can help with that or what the cause may be, as the 2.4GHz band holds fine. Oh, and it's pushing IPs in the 10.x.x.x range I guess because I left the original router broadcasting.

[Joe]

Never been a fan of wifi because of this issue. My main router hooked to the cable modem is on the far north end of the house. Never could get wifi to the middle or south end. Finally ran cat 6 cables to all parts of the house and then I have other wifi routers in different parts of the house. Full blown computers all use ethernet and I have good wifi throughout the house for tablets and phones.

No idea about the mesh wifi kits. I'm skeptical because it is still wifi and wifi doesn't go through walls, floors, or ceilings very well.

[Farabomb]

https://www.ubnt.com/

Peruse that and make your purchase. We've been running them at the lake compound, shop and at the track for years. They are a bit pricey but are commercial grade and work fantastic.

If you go the way of mesh bay attention to the backchannel. TD;DR backchannel is what it uses to talk between APs. Some use their own 3rd channel and some use either 2.4g or 5g. If they don't use a backchannel your speeds will be shit.

[Farabomb]

To explain a little better in my house wifi doesn't matter. On the other end of the house I can still see the router blinking so it's not an issue for me. Now at the compound up at Caroga Lake there are 5 houses over quite a bit of distance and with the Ubiquiti gear there isn't a dead spot anywhere. Shit, we get signal when we are out on the boat. At the track we normally have better coverage than the track's WiFi and people chase us down for the password.

[Slappy]

https://www.ubnt.com/

Peruse that and make your purchase. We've been running them at the lake compound, shop and at the track for years. They are a bit pricey but are commercial grade and work fantastic.

If you go the way of mesh bay attention to the backchannel. TD;DR backchannel is what it uses to talk between APs. Some use their own 3rd channel and some use either 2.4g or 5g. If they don't use a backchannel your speeds will be shit.

Ohhhhh, we have one of those here the new shop! I even asked somebody what brand/model it was & they said they didn't know - the IT people just recommended it & installed it. I tried to Google the logo but couldn't get a good enough shot, it's hanging up high in the other room.

The Linksys Velop they just announced at CES claims to have all that backchannel business worked out, but it's first gen too so who really knows.

[Joe]

https://www.ubnt.com/

Peruse that and make your purchase. We've been running them at the lake compound, shop and at the track for years. They are a bit pricey but are commercial grade and work fantastic.

If you go the way of mesh bay attention to the backchannel. TD;DR backchannel is what it uses to talk between APs. Some use their own 3rd channel and some use either 2.4g or 5g. If they don't use a backchannel your speeds will be shit.

Well for that price it should be good!

[Slappy]

All of these mesh systems run about that, seems to be $250+ for a 2-Node setup, and another $125 or so for add'l nodes.

[Joe]

I guess that isn't that bad if they work great. A top end router will run you $300-$400 these days.

[DigiCorn]

https://www.ubnt.com/

Peruse that and make your purchase. We've been running them at the lake compound, shop and at the track for years. They are a bit pricey but are commercial grade and work fantastic.

If you go the way of mesh bay attention to the backchannel. TD;DR backchannel is what it uses to talk between APs. Some use their own 3rd channel and some use either 2.4g or 5g. If they don't use a backchannel your speeds will be shit.

Ohhhhh, we have one of those here the new shop! I even asked somebody what brand/model it was & they said they didn't know - the IT people just recommended it & installed it. I tried to Google the logo but couldn't get a good enough shot, it's hanging up high in the other room.

The Linksys Velop they just announced at CES claims to have all that backchannel business worked out, but it's first gen too so who really knows.

I'm so done with Linksys after they screwed me over on the 1st gen AC router I bought from them after they got bought out by Belkin.

[Farabomb]

I never liked Linksys, I've always been a netgear man. I thought linksys was owned by Cisco but it seems Belkin owns them now.

Yeah, they are pricey but they are business grade. I've never been into the software side but my friend says it's robust and easy to work with. He also says it's easy to boot people off and administer the network but again, I haven't been behind the curtain.

Like Joe says you can spend a dumb amount of money on a router. I've been running the same shit one for years. I was looking into a new one but found DD-WRT and installed it and it's been running without issue for over a year now. Do I know what a quarter of the settings do, hell no but It's a LOT more stable that it was in the past. With be siting next to it, it would drop connection.

Somewhat related: now I have to get the repeater from verizon in order to get cell in my house. I've been pestering them for a free one but they seem to think it's not their fault. I would tend to agree but it was bad before but since they had to sell some of their towers I get nothing. Sadly the thing that annoys me more is that some of the stupid games on my phone glitch and that's what's making me do that. Nothing to do with communication, I enjoyed my phone not being able to connect.

[born2print]

Been running a Netgear N-band
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/netgear-wireless-n-router-black/8998506.p?skuId=8998506&ref=212&loc=1&ksid=6fc8d8bc-37f0-4963-9eeb-f73592b893b7&ksprof_id=401&ksaffcode=pg112544&ksdevice=c&lsft=ref:212,loc:2
at home for years, cheap and reliable :knocks on wood:

[Grimace]

I'm not very tech savvy anymore so i just bought the Apple Airport Extreme. Stupid name to be sure, but I get access all over the house, outside, and at the neighbors (on the side my office is). I only have a 1700 sq foot house though. 
One thing I like about Apple's set up: they make it really easy to set up an invisible network. I don't like to broadcast that my network exists, even when protected with good password. 

[Farabomb]

I just name my networks things like FBI_Van, Viral_plague and Seal_Team_Six and I've never had issues.

[Joe]

Mine is named Darth Vader.

[born2print]

 :smiley:  Name it Identity_thief