[SOLVED] Looking for a mesh

[trikki77]

Hello

Im now using Asus RT-AX58U. Im getting sick of Wifi hangs, disconnects. Couple of restarts every week. I have tried everything to fix it. The reason im looking for mesh, is that my apartment which isn't that big, but there's a lot of concrete walls. Now, past few weeks i have checked out a lot of reviews of mesh wifi's. I just can't decide what to get, maybe you can help me? My budget is 250€.

 

[bill001g]

Why would you think mesh is some magic solution to your problem.

Mesh should be your very last option when you would consider any wifi connection better than none.

Key here is just more signal level means very little. Lets say you only use the remote unit and turn off the main router. You can get maximum signal levels but with no connection to the main unit you will still get zero data transfer.

The whole problem is you must place the remote unit where it can get strong signal from the main router and provide good signal to the end device. This location may not exist if it is a wall or floor absorbing your signals, concrete wall are very very good at blocking wifi. The marketing acts like you can just place these remote unit in the remote room and by magic you get good signals.
This is a bunch of crap. The repeater unit will get the same bad signals as your end device does and then attempt to re transmit this bad signal making it even worse.

You have a wifi6 router, are you actually using wifi6. The router you have can attempt to use 160mhz radio bands. This should give you the maximum speed BUT it all depends on the quality of the signals. You greatly increase you chance of interference from neighbors the wider you make the radio channels. That is why many times you can get better results setting the channel width to the minimum of 20mhz. Might be slower but it will be much more constant in many cases.

If you are really going to buy a mesh/repeater system you need to get one that has dedicated back haul radios. This of course increases the costs. It still is going to be better than any for of mesh/repeater that uses the same radio to talk to the main router and to send the signal to the end device. These 2 signals interfere with each other when they use the same radio and cut the speed drastically. Now there is no free lunch here. You are now using 2 blocks of radio bandwidth which double your chance of interference. You also can not use wifi6 using 160mhz channels because there is not enough bandwifth to get 2 signals. I think that is why you do not mesh/repeaters using wifi6.

In the end I suspect no wifi solution is going to work for you. You generally can get ok coverage with just a signal router in most apartments. The signal levels are so good that in most apartment you have multiple neighbors stomping on your signals. Concrete walls really help with that problem but if there are internal concrete walls it must pass through it will block signal to your end device just as effectively.

My main recommendation it to not use wifi to solve this issue. Best of course is if you could run a ethernet cable to the remote room. As alternatives you can look at MoCA if you have coax cables in both rooms or maybe powerline networks. In all these cases you would then connect a AP or a router running as a AP to the output side to provide wifi.