Question cheap wifi mesh help

[diondb]

hi so i have always had issues with the wifi in my room, as the modem is on the other side of the house downstairs. I live in Australia so the wifi is nothing special so 50-75mbs up when standing next to the modem.

i have tried a wifi booster and ofc that didn't work. (BTW, the power line internet doesn't work in this case due to my room being on a different powerline)

the question is as I don't wanna spend a lot of money so the range of 120-170AUD (75-100USD) I want to get a 3 node mesh system. only issue is that for the price I can only get dual band and wifi 5. Now as my wifi is nothing special will that matter anyway as getting something faster will not help my original wifi and be a waist?

are there any good options for real cheap mesh systems that will do the trick?

 

[cruisetung]

Searched Australia Amazon, possible cheap solution:

https://www.amazon.com.au/Tenda-Nova-MW3-3-Mesh-System/dp/B07D9CC637

Everyone's house is different, no one can tell you if a mesh wifi will work, you have to try it yourself.

One 4K video stream only requires 30Mbps, in most conditions it really doesn't matter if it's dual or triple bands.

====

My bad. Did not notice Tenda's LAN port is 100Mbps only.

https://www.amazon.com.au/TP-Link-Deco-Replacement-S4-3-Pack/dp/B084GTH5LL should be better and still fits your budget.

 

[bill001g]

They are all pretty much garbage. You trade your bandwidth/speed for coverage. The signals are being send/received twice so you lose at least 1/2 your bandwidth.

This in your case likely doesn't matter. I suspect the 50-75 mbps is a ISP limitation and not wifi. Do you get the same speed if you test with a Ethernet cable.

Key here is the wifi signals themselves inside your house are likely well above that rate. Even if you cut them in half you still likely will get the 75mbps at the remote end.

This just like powerline networks greatly depend on the house and how it is constructed. People that live in apartment that have walls and floors made from concrete get almost no wifi coverage. It is going to be all trial and error to see the best case you get. One key thing is do not place the extender unit in the remote room where you are trying to get coverage. It must be placed in a area where it can get strong signal from the main router and still send a signal to the remote room. If it was one big open area with no walls it would be 1/2 way but when you have walls/ceilings in the way there is no simple answer.

I am unclear what you tried when you say you ran a wifi "booster". Most cheaper mesh systems are the same exact technology as extender/booster device. Like most tech things the marketing guys just put "mesh" on the box to make it seem new and trendy. You may have placed the unit in a improper location.

Very high end mesh systems have extra dedicated radios to talk between the main unit and the remote device. These extra chips in all the units increase the cost. This to a point reduces the bandwidth penalty. You now are using 2 time the original bandwidth so when it get cut in 1/2 it is closer to the orginal speed. There is no free lunch though. There is only so much radio bandwidth legally allowed. You greatly increase the chance of running on the same channels as your neighbors which then causes you to lose bandwidth for that reason.

Wifi extender/mesh systems are ok for pretty much any application other that online games. Online games already have huge issues with the random latency spikes on just a single wifi signal with a repeater in the path you now have 2 wifi signals that can cause spikes.

 

[diondb]

They are all pretty much garbage. You trade your bandwidth/speed for coverage. The signals are being send/received twice so you lose at least 1/2 your bandwidth.

This in your case likely doesn't matter. I suspect the 50-75 mbps is a ISP limitation and not wifi. Do you get the same speed if you test with a Ethernet cable.

Key here is the wifi signals themselves inside your house are likely well above that rate. Even if you cut them in half you still likely will get the 75mbps at the remote end.

This just like powerline networks greatly depend on the house and how it is constructed. People that live in apartment that have walls and floors made from concrete get almost no wifi coverage. It is going to be all trial and error to see the best case you get. One key thing is do not place the extender unit in the remote room where you are trying to get coverage. It must be placed in a area where it can get strong signal from the main router and still send a signal to the remote room. If it was one big open area with no walls it would be 1/2 way but when you have walls/ceilings in the way there is no simple answer.

I am unclear what you tried when you say you ran a wifi "booster". Most cheaper mesh systems are the same exact technology as extender/booster device. Like most tech things the marketing guys just put "mesh" on the box to make it seem new and trendy. You may have placed the unit in a improper location.

Very high end mesh systems have extra dedicated radios to talk between the main unit and the remote device. These extra chips in all the units increase the cost. This to a point reduces the bandwidth penalty. You now are using 2 time the original bandwidth so when it get cut in 1/2 it is closer to the orginal speed. There is no free lunch though. There is only so much radio bandwidth legally allowed. You greatly increase the chance of running on the same channels as your neighbors which then causes you to lose bandwidth for that reason.

Wifi extender/mesh systems are ok for pretty much any application other that online games. Online games already have huge issues with the random latency spikes on just a single wifi signal with a repeater in the path you now have 2 wifi signals that can cause spikes.

Thanks so much ok i understand, i was willing to spend some more and I have heard good stuff about TP link x20, would that be a good option? would that be better than a "cheap mesh system" and actually do the job

when I tried a booster it was a small $40 extender that just plugs and boosts a little bit. I'm unsure what it was called

my problem is my bedroom is a weak point and doesn't have full bars ever, so I was thinking a mesh system would widen the range, but yea I don't want to half the speeds. would the x20 still have bad lag spikes for games?

 

[diondb]

Searched Australia Amazon, possible cheap solution:

https://www.amazon.com.au/Tenda-Nova-MW3-3-Mesh-System/dp/B07D9CC637

Everyone's house is different, no one can tell you if a mesh wifi will work, you have to try it yourself.

One 4K video stream only requires 30Mbps, in most conditions it really doesn't matter if it's dual or triple bands.

====

My bad. Did not notice Tenda's LAN port is 100Mbps only.

https://www.amazon.com.au/TP-Link-Deco-Replacement-S4-3-Pack/dp/B084GTH5LL should be better and still fits your budget.

thank you bro, yes i have seen that and will do some more research

 

[bill001g]

You have to remember it is going to be 1/2 the wifi speed not 1/2 the internet speed.......if you had 1gbit internet it might be more concern.

So let say your wifi is running 300mbps it would then get 150mbps when you use a repeater/mesh system If your internet plan is only 50mbps 150 is still much more.

For gaming I would try again with the powerline units. Maybe a different combination of outlets would work. Unless you bought the very old units that have 200 numbers on them they do not have to be on the same circuit. The key restriction is they have to be on the same main breaker panel or behind the same power meter. Games do not need much bandwidth. Online games only use about 1mbps or less when you are playing them. The key things they do need is very stable packet latency since the delays between packets is how the game keep your machine in sync with the server. Wifi is pretty much the only transfer method that uses error correction for damaged data and this causes random small delays. Games would actually prefer the packets in error be discarded. Almost every other application has not issues with wifi error correction. When you are using any kind of repeater/mesh you now double your chance of damaged data.