Question Mesh Router orientation - - - does it matter ?

[M0rtis]

Long story short, one of my range extenders is dying and the equivalent or slightly better model's prices have crept up to silly levels post Covid so it doesnt really make sense to replace it with pretty much the same thing (TP Link AC1200 range extender)
My plan is to replace the range extender and my router (TP link Archer AC1200) with a Mesh Network and while doing so might as well upgrade to Wifi 6 for some future proofing. Ill be honest and say that I did some terrible planning with my home network 11 years ago when I renovated the house with only a phone wire in the walls because I was using DSL then and my PC was the primary internet client but now there are multiple people and devices in the house that need a Wifi connection and replacing the cabling in the walls requires major renovation because the walls are brick and concrete. Im mentioning this because Wifi 6 is "enough" for the next few years and for anything more I would like to run cabling between the access points which wont happen for a few years.

So the Mesh system I have finalized is this one : https://www.mercusys.co.in/product/details/halo-h80x

Mercusys is a "bang for buck" sub brand of TP Link that seems to be available only in India and a few other countries. Its pretty much reskinned TP Link software and hardware at a very reasonable price. There might be some cost cutting compromises but when you factor in the price difference then its quite alright. For example the closest TP Link equivalent is the Deco X20 series which is only AX1800 vs AX3000 and costs 50% more.

My main question is if these Mesh routers need to be placed "as pictured" or in their standard positions to have the best network signal spread throughout the house even though they have beamforming tech ? Im asking because in my case they both need to be wallmounted and in their standard orientation, I wont be able to plug in power plug unless I install a shelf for them which I would like to avoid for the 2nd unit because of where its going to be placed. From the pictures I can find there are no screw mounting holes either unless they are on the underside which I doubt.

I would like to mount the bottoms to the wall with the tops facing into the room. Would this be fine or would the signal now have more vertical and less horizontal spread because I turned them 90 degrees ? Also, is it OK to mount them closer to the ceiling or is it better to have them lower ?

Lastly, from some Amazon reviews it seems like these routers only a combined 2.4 and 5 Ghz network with the same SSID. Would that be an issue with devices that only accept 2.4 like my stupid HP printer ? Info on the net seems mixed and varies between users and devices.

 

[bill001g]

So first if you want to "future proof" you want wifi6e. Wifi6 in general provides very little benefit over wifi5. This is because the key reason that wifi6 is faster is using 160mhz radio bands. There are all kinds of rules about use of these radio channels on the 5g band so many devices do not support it. In addition there are issue with the router dropping back to 80mhz if it detects say weather radar.

In general most people find very little difference between 802.11ac (wifi5) and wifi6. Wifi6e can use the 6ghz radio band which greatly solves the lack of radio bandwidth on the 5g radios.

Beam forming is mostly market hype. In general the most direct path might be through a wall. It is very common for the best wifi signal to bounce off walls and say come in through a open door.

Using the same SSID mostly has issues when a device connects to 2.4g by mistake rather than the faster 5g. If a device only supports 1 or the other it will connect correctly.

The huge difference in so called mesh units is the cheaper units are just the older repeater technology renamed. The major problem with repeaters is the remote unit retransmits the data back on the same radio it received it on causing interference.
To fix to some extent the high end repeaters add a extra radio chip to talk between the units. So now you would have all your device with a 2.4 and 5 radio to talk to end client and then a extra radio to talk to the router that can be set to either 2.4 or 5.
The newest wifi6e mesh systems now have 4 radio chips per box making them even more costly.

In general it is not going to make a huge difference how you mount them. The signals are bouncing all over the place anyway, this is what makes mimo work.

 

[M0rtis]

So first if you want to "future proof" you want wifi6e. Wifi6 in general provides very little benefit over wifi5. This is because the key reason that wifi6 is faster is using 160mhz radio bands. There are all kinds of rules about use of these radio channels on the 5g band so many devices do not support it. In addition there are issue with the router dropping back to 80mhz if it detects say weather radar.

In general most people find very little difference between 802.11ac (wifi5) and wifi6. Wifi6e can use the 6ghz radio band which greatly solves the lack of radio bandwidth on the 5g radios.

Beam forming is mostly market hype. In general the most direct path might be through a wall. It is very common for the best wifi signal to bounce off walls and say come in through a open door.

Using the same SSID mostly has issues when a device connects to 2.4g by mistake rather than the faster 5g. If a device only supports 1 or the other it will connect correctly.

The huge difference in so called mesh units is the cheaper units are just the older repeater technology renamed. The major problem with repeaters is the remote unit retransmits the data back on the same radio it received it on causing interference.
To fix to some extent the high end repeaters add a extra radio chip to talk between the units. So now you would have all your device with a 2.4 and 5 radio to talk to end client and then a extra radio to talk to the router that can be set to either 2.4 or 5.
The newest wifi6e mesh systems now have 4 radio chips per box making them even more costly.

In general it is not going to make a huge difference how you mount them. The signals are bouncing all over the place anyway, this is what makes mimo work.

Thanks for the advice. As such I should have been clear that Im looking for near term futureproofing, basically just the next 5 years or so. Luckily tech improvements seem to have slowed down on all fronts so I dont see myself facing a similar situation where I went from 4 Mbps ADSL to 100Mbps broadband to 300 Mbps Fiber Optic in 10 years. This ISP goes up to Gigabit connections so even if 8K VR streaming or whatever, Ill have enough bandwith. For true futureproofing I would like to lay cables for the backhaul, probably Cat 8 or fiber optic.
My primary reason for this is to replace one of my range extenders which seems to be wearing out. The direct replacement is $37. The Mercusys mesh system I linked is $ 112 so just about 3X for 2 units and a bit of an upgrade. The closest TP Link Mesh is $150 and the cheapest 6E mesh I can find is $275 so almost 8 times the price and according to me not worth it right now atleast.
The other option is to stick to Wifi 5 and get the Deco M4 AC1200 set for $ 80 or the same $112 for 3 units.

So yeah Im quite confused. As such I would rather save some money now and then spend on a proper upgrade a few years down the line when all the various parts involved match up better.

 

[bill001g]

Wifi tech is still changing fast vendor are already selling wifi7 stuff even though the standard it is based on will not be final until the very first part of 2024.

Since I hate repeaters so much I have not looked into it lately but I remember when wifi6 first came out there was a lot of discussion of WPA3 and repeaters. WPA3 is the new security standard. Repeaters use a hack called WDS to get past the restriction of mac addresses being part of the wifi encryption key used by WPA2. Wifi has always been designed to be point to point between single devices.

WPS3 prevents the use of WDS so this in effect will break all current repeaters. What I don't know is when devices are "required" to use WPS3. I don't know if it is when you use wifi6 or if it is only on the 6ghz radio band used by wifi6e or if there are exceptions that allow WPS2 to be used on 6ghz. It gets confusing telling the difference between government regulations and the industry standards for wifi.

In the end this means that so called mesh units if they want to function in the future are going to have to find another way to get past the restrictions...which is still a technical violation of the encryption standards since it is basically a man in the middle exploit.
Almost impossible to see even short term future when it comes to wifi.


With wifi it is mostly selling to people who like big numbers. For most things you need well less than 100mbps, HD video off netflix runs 25-30mbps. Wifi is mostly run on portable devices. The thing that more bandwidth helps is faster download. Phones etc have almost no storage so they are not doing 20GBYTE game downloads. It is almost all games and you really should never play those on wifi. I am unsure why people spend money to get faster wifi download when they would be better off investing that money into a solution that lets you play the game you downloaded without problems. Most online games need well under 1mbps but need the connection to be extremely stable with no errors.

Your end goal should be to get any machine that plays games on some non wifi technology. Everything else likely doesn't matter a lot if you get more speed. Getting any mesh/repeater system more stable so it doesn't drop so often is more a issue with placement of the units rather than the technology.

If your old solution worked ok then maybe just replace it with a similar unit. Most repeaters can work with any router so you wouldn't have to replace the whole system even if you went with a different brand.

 

[M0rtis]

Wifi tech is still changing fast vendor are already selling wifi7 stuff even though the standard it is based on will not be final until the very first part of 2024.

Since I hate repeaters so much I have not looked into it lately but I remember when wifi6 first came out there was a lot of discussion of WPA3 and repeaters. WPA3 is the new security standard. Repeaters use a hack called WDS to get past the restriction of mac addresses being part of the wifi encryption key used by WPA2. Wifi has always been designed to be point to point between single devices.

WPS3 prevents the use of WDS so this in effect will break all current repeaters. What I don't know is when devices are "required" to use WPS3. I don't know if it is when you use wifi6 or if it is only on the 6ghz radio band used by wifi6e or if there are exceptions that allow WPS2 to be used on 6ghz. It gets confusing telling the difference between government regulations and the industry standards for wifi.

In the end this means that so called mesh units if they want to function in the future are going to have to find another way to get past the restrictions...which is still a technical violation of the encryption standards since it is basically a man in the middle exploit.
Almost impossible to see even short term future when it comes to wifi.


With wifi it is mostly selling to people who like big numbers. For most things you need well less than 100mbps, HD video off netflix runs 25-30mbps. Wifi is mostly run on portable devices. The thing that more bandwidth helps is faster download. Phones etc have almost no storage so they are not doing 20GBYTE game downloads. It is almost all games and you really should never play those on wifi. I am unsure why people spend money to get faster wifi download when they would be better off investing that money into a solution that lets you play the game you downloaded without problems. Most online games need well under 1mbps but need the connection to be extremely stable with no errors.

Your end goal should be to get any machine that plays games on some non wifi technology. Everything else likely doesn't matter a lot if you get more speed. Getting any mesh/repeater system more stable so it doesn't drop so often is more a issue with placement of the units rather than the technology.

If your old solution worked ok then maybe just replace it with a similar unit. Most repeaters can work with any router so you wouldn't have to replace the whole system even if you went with a different brand.

Yeah so for my PC on which I game, Im using a wired connection to my ISPs Fiber ONT Router thing and its in the bedroom. From there a cable runs to my old AC1200 Router which I used on my pre-fiber connection and two range extenders are connected to it in an "L " shaped layout with the extenders at each end of the L and router in the middle. The one which services the living room and thus the TV is failing and needs replacement.
So like you said, top speed on the Wifi network isnt a priority and just a good stable connection. Im just going a bit overspec because the signal has to sometimes pass through brick and concrete walls which have rebar so some faraday cage stuff might be happening which is why my assumption was - Higher rated Max speed = more powerful antennas = better connection at lower speeds.
Which is why I asked about if its ok to orient the routers in a non ideal way in case it affected the way the signal was broadcast. Mesh is an added benefit that enables a smooth transition from point to point because right now it isnt as seamless. The cellphone coverage at home is spotty so Wifi calling is a great workaround but Im stuck in a spot with the current setup because it will disconnect if I move from room to room with the current network.

 

[bill001g]

You believe to many marketing fantasies. Mesh does not do seamless roaming any better than any other wifi option. The end device not the network is in control of where it connects and when it changes. It is also never without tiny interruptions because the wifi must still renegotiate the unique wifi encryption session keys.
There is no good solution for this since the end device can not scan for better connections when it is using its radio to transfer data. In general it doesn't matter except for the narrow case you are looking at since nobody watches netflix while they walk around the house.

What I would look for instead for your cell issues is called a microcell. This is basically you own private cell tower in your house that runs a vpn over your internet. Some ISP will give you them for free if you have cell coverage issues. They are not real expensive but you should talk to your cell provider as to which will work on their system.

In general to "fix" your problem you need to find better places for the repeaters. They do not go in the remote room like the marketing idiots imply. They need to go where they can get strong signal from the router but still be able to send the signal to the remote room at a good level. This is all trial and error to find.

If you have coax cables in the remote room and near the router MoCA is a excellent solution.

 

[M0rtis]

You believe to many marketing fantasies. Mesh does not do seamless roaming any better than any other wifi option. The end device not the network is in control of where it connects and when it changes. It is also never without tiny interruptions because the wifi must still renegotiate the unique wifi encryption session keys.
There is no good solution for this since the end device can not scan for better connections when it is using its radio to transfer data. In general it doesn't matter except for the narrow case you are looking at since nobody watches netflix while they walk around the house.

What I would look for instead for your cell issues is called a microcell. This is basically you own private cell tower in your house that runs a vpn over your internet. Some ISP will give you them for free if you have cell coverage issues. They are not real expensive but you should talk to your cell provider as to which will work on their system.

In general to "fix" your problem you need to find better places for the repeaters. They do not go in the remote room like the marketing idiots imply. They need to go where they can get strong signal from the router but still be able to send the signal to the remote room at a good level. This is all trial and error to find.

If you have coax cables in the remote room and near the router MoCA is a excellent solution.

No no Im not watching Netflix while taking a walk inside the house. That use case was for voice over Wifi i.e. your Wifi is used to boost your networks call quality.
While it might not be seamless, wouldnt a Mesh network still have faster or smoother handovers ?
As for positioning the repeaters, they arent at either end, they are pretty much at the plugpoint nearest ideal locations, cant get much better than that. Roughly 10 and 15 odd feet from the main router but through walls and slightly odd angles. I get roughly half my speed (150 Mbps) when right next to the repeater and this drops to around 20-25 Mbps at the TV so not too bad but as such its a relatively steep drop when you factor in that the TV isnt that far from the repeater and isnt blocked much by architecture so there is some room for improvement

 

[bill001g]

What technical thing in mesh do you think make it have faster hand over. You will never see anything in the ads they just blind claim it does with nothing to back it up.

Again the end device not the network is in charge of the switching. At best the network could force a node off the network but there is no guarantee it would connect to the correct thing and this abnormal termination is going to be slower since the end device must first attempt to correct from the abnormal termination and then do the scan it would have done.

The key problem with any kind of repeater is the signal between the main router and the signal to the end device share the same radio channel/bandwidth. You are very best get 1/2 the speed but it normally much less because of the interference between the signals. You can do a point fix this by say only using 5g to connect between the repeater and the main router and only use the 2.4g radio to talk to the end units. Problem is the 2.4g radio is much slower.

To a small extent you can reduce this problem by putting a extra radio in to talk to between the repeaters and the main router. This of course greatly increases the costs since you have extra hardware in all the devices.

Many years ago before cell phone companies allowed unlimited minutes we used to use voice of ip on wifi in a corporate install. Cisco had a very fancy system that would allow you to move between the company PBX and the cell network as well as even move between floors and buildings. It cost a fortune and required special software to be loaded on every phone. Of course they charged for each copy of that software. It work pretty good but it in effect does what a cell phone does. It allowed the network to control the application.

The cell phone companies finally got smart and also started offering microcells you place in buildings to improve cell coverage.

What is strange is a single microcell in your house has few issues with coverage. Maybe the radio frequencies are not blocked as easily as wifi.

 

[digitalgriffin]

Long story short, one of my range extenders is dying and the equivalent or slightly better model's prices have crept up to silly levels post Covid so it doesnt really make sense to replace it with pretty much the same thing (TP Link AC1200 range extender)
My plan is to replace the range extender and my router (TP link Archer AC1200) with a Mesh Network and while doing so might as well upgrade to Wifi 6 for some future proofing. Ill be honest and say that I did some terrible planning with my home network 11 years ago when I renovated the house with only a phone wire in the walls because I was using DSL then and my PC was the primary internet client but now there are multiple people and devices in the house that need a Wifi connection and replacing the cabling in the walls requires major renovation because the walls are brick and concrete. Im mentioning this because Wifi 6 is "enough" for the next few years and for anything more I would like to run cabling between the access points which wont happen for a few years.

So the Mesh system I have finalized is this one : https://www.mercusys.co.in/product/details/halo-h80x

Mercusys is a "bang for buck" sub brand of TP Link that seems to be available only in India and a few other countries. Its pretty much reskinned TP Link software and hardware at a very reasonable price. There might be some cost cutting compromises but when you factor in the price difference then its quite alright. For example the closest TP Link equivalent is the Deco X20 series which is only AX1800 vs AX3000 and costs 50% more.

My main question is if these Mesh routers need to be placed "as pictured" or in their standard positions to have the best network signal spread throughout the house even though they have beamforming tech ? Im asking because in my case they both need to be wallmounted and in their standard orientation, I wont be able to plug in power plug unless I install a shelf for them which I would like to avoid for the 2nd unit because of where its going to be placed. From the pictures I can find there are no screw mounting holes either unless they are on the underside which I doubt.

I would like to mount the bottoms to the wall with the tops facing into the room. Would this be fine or would the signal now have more vertical and less horizontal spread because I turned them 90 degrees ? Also, is it OK to mount them closer to the ceiling or is it better to have them lower ?

Lastly, from some Amazon reviews it seems like these routers only a combined 2.4 and 5 Ghz network with the same SSID. Would that be an issue with devices that only accept 2.4 like my stupid HP printer ? Info on the net seems mixed and varies between users and devices.

Mesh for the most part is really marketing hype. There is latency, and if you really want to push distance limits, the mesh will default to 2.4GHz for the back haul because 2.4GHz still has the longest range.

Getting a good single source AP or WiFi Router is a better way to go for most home. You should be near full speed on 5GHz 802.11ac even with 1 or 2 walls at 60Ft+