Question First Time Mesh Setup D-Link Router

[spiderbatman]

Hello Folks,

I have a D-Link DIR-2640 AC 2600 MU-MIMO router working excellently for me as a repeater. The problem is a generic issue with the repeater where it creates a new network and therefore, I wanted to switch to mesh setup so that my network remains same throughout the house.

I checked online and found that DIR-2640 is D-Link Wi-Fi Mesh Enabled.

Now, I need a supporting router to create a mesh network. I am getting a good deal on my local hardware store for D-Link DIR-1950 AC 1900 MU-MIMO. This one says it supports EasyMesh which AFAIK is a universally supported mesh protocol that will let you connect routers from different companies if they all support EasyMesh.

My question is that will DIR-1950 also be able to create mesh network with DIR-2640? Then it makes sense for me to purchase.

I am not a geek and I depend on Youtube guides to do the little bit of tech stuff at home. But this one, I am not able to get any info on. Can someone please guide me here, this will be of great help!

Thanks

 

[bill001g]

I am not so sure what you really think mesh is. It mostly is a different name for repeater. There are some much more expensive models that have a extra radio chip in all the units to talk to the main router. In addition most mesh units use some proprietary method to talk. I have no idea what "easymesh" is there is no standard for mesh so it is likely just the old WDS stuff that repeaters have always used.

There are no official wifi standards for repeaters or mesh. Almost all of them are technically cheating to bypass restrictions in the actual standards.


What is your actual issue. Everything is all one network. You need very fancy semi-commerical equipment to get actually different networks/vlans. If you mean the SSID id on the radio is different that is not really a different network just a different name for the same network. It depends on the repeater if you can set them the same of different. Most you can change the name.

In many ways different SSID can be better. It is the end devices and not the network that determine where a connection is made and they can be stupid sometimes. You many times are better off having different SSID so you the human can force a connection where you know it is best. It is mostly a personal preference.

 

[spiderbatman]

I am not so sure what you really think mesh is. It mostly is a different name for repeater. There are some much more expensive models that have a extra radio chip in all the units to talk to the main router. In addition most mesh units use some proprietary method to talk. I have no idea what "easymesh" is there is no standard for mesh so it is likely just the old WDS stuff that repeaters have always used.

There are no official wifi standards for repeaters or mesh. Almost all of them are technically cheating to bypass restrictions in the actual standards.


What is your actual issue. Everything is all one network. You need very fancy semi-commerical equipment to get actually different networks/vlans. If you mean the SSID id on the radio is different that is not really a different network just a different name for the same network. It depends on the repeater if you can set them the same of different. Most you can change the name.

In many ways different SSID can be better. It is the end devices and not the network that determine where a connection is made and they can be stupid sometimes. You many times are better off having different SSID so you the human can force a connection where you know it is best. It is mostly a personal preference.

Thanks for your inputs, so based on my online research, I found this:
Link
Snapshot
It says that with mesh you get one network across but with repeater you get an additional network. This is what I was planning to avoid.

EasyMesh seems to be a certification program that lets all certified routers to connect together to form a mesg network.
EasyMesh

 

[bill001g]

It really looks like the first link is just someone that took marketing garbage and made a web page out of it.

There is no actual definitions of "repeater" or "mesh". I guess that is why they can make web pages like that they just make up whatever definition they want and then declare one has a advantage over the other.

They are also misusing the term "network". wifi ssid is just a different name for the same network. The network is more related to the IP addresses used by your router it is not a wifi function.

It seems like this easymesh is just a group of manufacture that agree to be compatible. Again any kind of mesh is not part of any official standard. Stuff like wifi6 or wifi6e are official standards and do include any form of mesh.

So why can you not just use the current router you are using as a mesh device that you say works good. Can you not just change the name of the SSID to be the same.

 

[jzchen]

To answer your question basically it doesn’t look like they will mesh together. The DIR-2640 appears to use a D-Link proprietary mesh which is different from the WiFi Alliance standard EasyMesh. You can usually change the SSID of any repeater to match but if they aren’t meshed the hand off from one to another as you move your device around will not act the same. The device will need to disconnect from one then reconnect to the other. In a mesh the same WiFi device would be handed off seamlessly like if you are driving around and in a conversation on your cell phone…

 

[bill001g]

To answer your question basically it doesn’t look like they will mesh together. The DIR-2640 appears to use a D-Link proprietary mesh which is different from the WiFi Alliance standard EasyMesh. You can usually change the SSID of any repeater to match but if they aren’t meshed the hand off from one to another as you move your device around will not act the same. The device will need to disconnect from one then reconnect to the other. In a mesh the same WiFi device would be handed off seamlessly like if you are driving around and in a conversation on your cell phone…

Will never happen. You will never get any type of "seamless" handoff on wifi. Unlike cell networks the end device not the network control when and where a device connect.

Even on cell networks which have all kinds of specialized software to sync the phones transfer to a new tower you hear small hand off at times. On wifi you can easily get a couple full second of outage.

On wifi it has nothing at all to do if you have a "mesh" system. It is purely a function of the end device and how it switches networks. It works the same no matter what type of wifi it is connecting to.....and it works extremely poorly compared to systems like cell networks that were designed for mobility from the ground up.