Wireless Mesh Network?

[Nealm66]

You can use the airport utility tool or the wifi analyzer tool to check before you do anything. Check your wifi strength at desired reflection points, move the current router to these points and check desired outlying areas. Router will broadcast without internet and will be on par with any of the mesh network devices or extenders. Remember to place router in exactly same spot, most are plugged into wall outlets

 

[Nealm66]

Wall outlet is also where you should test for receiving signal for reflection points

 

[Nealm66]

Also, good idea to jot levels down and checking for potential leap frogs. Remember too, if you have a # of hardwired devices in the far room, a simple back feed from a central spot is a potential. Also, mesh devices will usually have an output

 

[faultymechanics]

Thanks. I suspect I will be getting a Netgear Orbi or Linksys Velop, but nothing decided yet. We don't need gigabit+ throughput, but good range and rock steady operation are important.

You want a gigabit capable router and setup even if you don't get a gigabit switch. While you may not have gigabit speeds your hardware on your LAN can use gigabit speeds to transfer information, etc.

 

[faultymechanics]

Good point. Such is the layout of the house that I would have to do some notable rewiring to relocate the main to the center of the house in order to get ethernet wiring to non-wireless devices on the system. However, I am building toward the future so maybe wired devices will become something of the past. I ordered an Orbi today with one satellite. That will get my feet wet and allow me to determine what works well (and not) in our situation. I will start off with the main and the remote on the opposite corners of the house on the first floor, then test all around to see how well the signal is distributed. If there are problems, then I may need to adjust the plan.

I wish this were the case but the chances of Wifi catching up to Ethernet any time soon is very low.

Now, while I say that I should bite my tongue a bit because it really depends on what you're using your network for. If you just surf the web and stream videos, wifi is plenty. If you're a gamer or running servers, etc, you need the hardwire to reduce latency and provide the best speeds.

 

[begreen]

Orbi Wifi6 arrived today. It took a bit to setup. The Orbi app for iPhone kept messing up. I finally logged in with the web app and that went quickly and smoothly. We have the setup described earlier with one base and one satellite. This morning we tested the system on the old Netgear router. Wired I was seeing ~60mbps, for wireless on my laptop ~35 mbps. My son's computer upstairs (wireless) was seeing 14-16mbps. After the Orbi installation, everything is seeing 100mbps regardless of wired or wireless. That is an over 6x increase for my son's computer which has a Wifi6 card. I was quite surprised at the increase with my older Mac laptop. Then I did the outdoor test. In the garden area where we have seating for reading and hanging out under the shade of the apricot trees ~40ft. I still got ~100mbps. At the far corner where I didn't expect to get any signal (90' away) I was still able to get 35mbps! Needless to say, I am a little surprised and delighted. The Firestick on the tv is now connecting at 5GHz and shows strong signal vs moderate before. Overall this is better than expected. *** Happy Camper!

 

[Nealm66]

Awesome

 

[begreen]

Guess the concern over leapfrogging is a moot point for our simple setup.

 

[Nealm66]

Guess the concern over leapfrogging is a moot point for our simple setup.

I’ve seen where having additional satellite repeaters creates more problems than it fixes because they create a leap frog. Good to hear your success. I’ve never heard anything bad about the orbi’s

 

[begreen]

I can appreciate that and was prepared to add another satellite if the signal was weak. I see now that this will be unnecessary.

 

[lml999]

I don't have any opinion on the Wifi6 aspect but I've been using Asus AIMesh routers for awhile and they're pretty easy to set up.

I installed an Asus AIMesh network (router and two mesh access points) a couple of months ago, replacing a Cisco Small Business router and a sprinkling of Apple Extreme Tower access points. My Internet throughput more than doubled...the old Cisco router was really throttling the incoming bandwidth. My local wifi speeds, on the other hand, don't seem to have changed much. I was surprised that the AI mesh system didn't perform better...or maybe that the (really) old Apple access points worked so well. The Asus is much easier to configure than the Cisco, by the way, and seems to have enough security control.

 

[begreen]

I just ran another test with the satellite range. Yesterday I was working on fixing an air compressor and I wanted to watch a youtube video on the disassembly. It's a metal building so I wasn't expecting much. I brought my iPad out, but no signal, unless I propped it up in the window, then I had enough to run youtube. Progress.
On the downside, my son's computer has been dropping connection intermittently. It was fine for a couple days, then it started dropping connection. A reboot brings it back but that gets old. We are trying to isolate by changing card setting and testing.

 

[Nealm66]

Devices will try to connect to the strongest signal when they are in the -65 or less zone which is always the 2.5 . The 2.5 is notorious for dropping. not sure if that’s your problem but never hurts to measure signal strength

 

[Nealm66]

You can also pull up the logs on your modem to eliminate an actual internet dropping

 

[begreen]

Devices will try to connect to the strongest signal when they are in the -65 or less zone which is always the 2.5 . The 2.5 is notorious for dropping. not sure if that’s your problem but never hurts to measure signal strength

It's just his computer that is connecting solely on 5GHz. I would expect his signal to be very strong but will check. His computer is almost directly above the router on the 2nd floor. All other devices are doing fine, no loss of connection except for his computer which leads me to suspect his device settings. We'll see.

 

[TradEddie]

It's just his computer that is connecting solely on 5GHz. I would expect his signal to be very strong but will check. His computer is almost directly above the router on the 2nd floor. All other devices are doing fine, no loss of connection except for his computer which leads me to suspect his device settings. We'll see.

5GHz has less interference from other electronics but is more easily blocked by physical objects. I was in an industrial facility with $1500 access points that were unable to penetrate partition walls made from drywall and steel studs, with occasional pipes and wiring. That got very expensive for a 30 room facility.

TE

 

[Nealm66]

2.4 has 11 channels that are typically bonded. I see it kicking devices of randomly if 3-4 devices are connected. This includes neighboring networks. Baby monitors and cameras are the most common interference but some devices, even at different frequencies can modulate down or up and interfere. I suspect he might have a bad card or a conflict

 

[Nealm66]

Sometimes helps to update drivers

 

[Nealm66]

I am curious how you can tell he is only using the 5ghz though. Typically mesh networks join the 2 to create bandsteering

 

[mellow]

I have strong signal with the Eero Pro 6 system, got the 3 pack so I have total coverage on my house and outside. Got it for Black Friday, I had drop out issues as well and it was fixed with a firmware upgrade on the eero system.

 

[faultymechanics]

Leapfrogging or jumping between network bands, as said above can cause this. No reason a proper setup should be dropping connection. Yes connectivity issues are a thing but a stout router and modem setup shouldn't be causing you to get bumped off wifi because there's 3-4 devices on one channel.

People with IoT devices have potential 40+ smart devices using wifi on and off without interrupting their computers connection.

I highly recommend posting on the appropriate subreddit on reddit.com. For example if Netgear makes your setup, try posting on r/netgear.

 

[begreen]

We tried updating all drivers. No change. Then I went into his wifi card's device settings and looked for possible suspects. I made 2 changes. The first was to use the 5GHz band exclusively and the second was a sleep mode on low network activity. And voila, no more issues. It has been rock steady round the clock for a week now. Happy camper.

I am curious how you can tell he is only using the 5ghz though. Typically mesh networks join the 2 to create bandsteering

That's the band the Orbi said his computer has been using all along. Is this for Wifi6? When I changed the sleep mode for his wifi card I also set it to exclusively work on 5GHz in the device mgr while we were troubleshooting. Have not touched it since because stability has been reached.

Thanks very much for all the help. The system is working great now. I could even use internet in my shop which is in a metal bldg about 60 ft away if I propped up my iPad in the window facing the house. That was handy for a compressor repair video.

 

[Nealm66]

Most of the current wifi6 devices still use 5ghz as 6ghz has a pretty limited range and doesn’t penetrate very well. But it still combines a bunch of carriers and allows more speed and bandwidth. I suspect if by disabling the 2.4 was the cure,he may have something making his device choosing the better signal instead of the lesser traffic or the orbi’s band steering may have determined his device wasn’t requiring 5ghz speed. Hard to say. Glad it’s working good

 

[lml999]

I am curious how you can tell he is only using the 5ghz though. Typically mesh networks join the 2 to create bandsteering

I don't believe the two bands are joined. Band steering refers to assigning a device to one band or the other, depending on specific parameters.

Link

 

[Nealm66]

I don't believe the two bands are joined. Band steering refers to assigning a device to one band or the other, depending on specific parameters.

Link

Not joined, but orchestrated together by the router. Will only show one name but transmitting both separately.