[SOLVED] Need some assistance on selecting best WiFi Mesh System

[MasterYoda327]

I am researching for my father possible Wi-Fi Mesh Systems to replace the existing Wi-Fi mesh system in our house. I emailed questions to various Wi-Fi system manufacturers for recommendations on which of their products might work best. I have received responses from TP-Link, Asus, and eero. I am not very knowledgeable with all of the Wi-Fi properties and I am also not entirely confident that their customer service phone representatives are very knowledgeable either. Based on their information, these are the products that they recommended:

- TP-Link AX6600 Deco Tri-Band WiFi 6 Mesh System(Deco X90): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08Z2XXFF...FFEEE6C24_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas&th=1

- ASUS ZenWiFi AX Hybrid (XP4): https://www.asus.com/us/Networking-...-Systems/ASUS-ZenWiFi-AX-Hybrid-XP4/techspec/

- eero Pro 6E: https://eero.com/shop/eero-pro-6e

The purpose of the Wi-Fi mesh system that is selected is to handle streaming Full HD and 4KTV content from services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Disney Plus on multiple Smart TVs and streaming devices, handle online gaming on both gaming PC and gaming console, stream online music from services such as Amazon and Spotify, handle online meetings through services such as Zoom and Skype, and handle more non-demanding tasks such as web browsing and email. Again, I am not very knowledgeable on all of the Wi-Fi properties. I am trying to get the best information and recommendations possible so that my father can make the decision on which Wi-Fi mesh system to purchase. I would appreciate any advice and recommendations that you might have.

As far as I can tell, these mentioned products are either their top-end or among their fastest products. My questions are as followed:

1. Which of the mentioned products is the fastest?

2. Are their any other current generation Wi-Fi products from the mentioned manufacturers or other reputable Wi-Fi manufacturers not listed that are fast or faster and/or more reliable that you would recommend? If so, what?

3. Unless there is a recommendation from the previous question, which of the mentioned devices would work best for our needs?

4. Do the listed devices and/or other recommended device(s) permit the addition of more Wi-Fi satellite units?

5. On the case of the eero Pro 6E, our house is pretty large and my dad may wish to add additional Wi-Fi satellites if the price is reasonable. If my father selects the eero Pro 6E, is the eero 6 Extender compatible with that system and able to extend its Wi-Fi mesh system range? https://eero.com/shop/eero-6-extender

Thanks in advance.

 

[bill001g]

So you have some interesting device choices you can't compare.

First you should try to move everything you can do wired connections. Things like online games and even skype/zoom to a point do not function well on wifi in general. Adding a mesh system is only going to make the problems worse.

Your optimum design is going to be to have ethernet run to the remote rooms and then put in AP in the remote rooms to provide the wifi. This is how wifi is done in enterprise installs. You can use so called "mesh" unit in the remote rooms but you are just paying extra when a cheap router will work as a AP.
If you do not have ethernet you might consider MoCA if you have tv coax. Moca is the only other technology than ethernet that can actually get gigabit speeds.

This leads to the second option you have on your list. These are very unusual units and I did not know they exist. These use powerline networks to make the connection between the base unit and remote rooms. This tends to be better than have a wifi backhual.

Next all the units you list run wifi6 which promises lots of magic but fails to deliver because there is not enough bandwidth on the 5g radio. Most end devices if they even run wifi6 in the first place only use 80mhz channels. Most people see very little advantage using wifi6 over wifi5 (802.11ac). What makes this even worse
with mesh/repeaters is your now have 2 signals trying to use the same limited bandwidth. The first and third options do have a extra radio they can use a dedicated backhual but this pretty much makes it so you can never use 160mhz channels even if your end devices support this.

Now the last units I have also never seen before. They are the first I have seen with wifi6e. Problem is this is very new so it is hard to say how well this works. In theory at least you could get 2 160mhz radio connections in the 6ghz band because there is lots of bandwidth. This should in theory be the fastest possible repeater/mesh.
The big problem is most devices do not support wifi6e yet. Even though the eero has 3 radios it does not have 2 radios that can run on the 6g band. This means it still suffers from all the problems anything that uses the 5g radio has. I suspect in the long run we will see devices that can run 2 radios on the 6g band and have devices that can also use wifi6e. Maybe then we will know if this is all lies from the wifi marketing guys again or if we will really get gigabit wifi.


So if you really want to go that way I would look at the second option....realizing that you likely use real powerline units and cheap routers to accomplish the same. You are paying extra for wifi6 and I suspect for fancy boxes that have router and powerline in one box.

I would still look at the ethernet and/or the moca option first that will be better than any form of mesh radio network. Also remember too much wifi can be worse than not enough. You have to very carefully tune the radio output power of the units to overlap as little as possible. If you just put in units and let them on full they will just stomp on each other.

 

[wrenchmonkey]

bill001g, the method you listed with ethernet backbone to separate rooms would work very well for me as my home is large, but fairly flat with a basement making running ethernet cable to all ground-floor rooms very easy. What brand of access points would you recommend? Would each access point now have its own separate ssids, relying on the device your using to jump to the nearest access point while moving about?
As a reference, I've had 2 google home mesh systems so far which both initially worked great, but both eventually started dropping signals intermittently-very frustrating.

 

[kanewolf]

bill001g, the method you listed with ethernet backbone to separate rooms would work very well for me as my home is large, but fairly flat with a basement making running ethernet cable to all ground-floor rooms very easy. What brand of access points would you recommend? Would each access point now have its own separate ssids, relying on the device your using to jump to the nearest access point while moving about?
As a reference, I've had 2 google home mesh systems so far which both initially worked great, but both eventually started dropping signals intermittently-very frustrating.

Ubiquiti access points. The U6 models. Don't focus on the "Long Range". In a home situation with wired backbone, more APs with the power turned DOWN is a much better implementation. I have 4 APs in my 1900 sq ft house. The other benefit of more APs is that your clients have an alternate WIFI source to jump to when you update the firmware on the APs.

 

[bill001g]

You can use the current mesh units as AP if you want. You can also use pretty much any router as a AP. The key reason you would a actual AP is if you wanted to power them via poe or say wanted to wall mount them. There are other management features in AP but most times unless you have a huge number it doesn't really matter.

The end device have always been in control of when they switch. That is the fallacy of the so called mesh seamless roaming. The network never is in control the end device is in full control of what it does or does not connect to. They are not real smart but it is partially because they have no way to know there is a "beter" signal because they are using their radio for data transmission rather than scanning. You can make this better by reducing the overlapping signals mostly by turning down the radio power. Some routers have that feature and almost all better AP have it.

It is not a huge issue. You the human know when there is a better signal and if your device has not figured it out you just stop and start the wifi network and it will choose the strongest signal. You can use different SSID if you want full control. In general most people do not actually need roaming. Very few people walk around their house while they watch netflix. I envision on these people falling down the stairs in their house while they are staring at their phone....I mean they walk out in front of cars already.