Question recommendation on wif + extender + mesh

[hypermails]

hi,

I need recommendation. I have a smallish house - but with wifi blocking walls aparently.

I would like recomendartion on a wifi router that comes with a extender.

I have coax connected between the rooms I need to connect. meaning -

in back room - main router will be connected to modem.

there is ethernet connection between back room and front room.

I want to setup a router 2 in front room which is a extension of same ssid of main router'

please help recomend a product that does this.

thanks

 

[bill001g]

You need nothing special. Buy a AP or use a inexpensive router acting as a AP in the front room. Manually set the ssid and passwords the same.

Mesh is mostly marketing hype. It is primarily a wireless repeater system but you are using ethernet. That is a good thing because you do not suffer the problem of having 2 or more wireless signals in the path.

Not sure what else you could want mesh for sure it avoids you having to configure the remote units but it is not like you do that more than once. All your devices are still on the same network and can share files etc. There really is no reason to pay for mesh if you are not going to use the wifi repeater function.

 

[hypermails]

I am bit novice. can you just recommend me a "ac" router+ap solution ?

You need nothing special. Buy a AP or use a inexpensive router acting as a AP in the front room. Manually set the ssid and passwords the same.

Mesh is mostly marketing hype. It is primarily a wireless repeater system but you are using ethernet. That is a good thing because you do not suffer the problem of having 2 or more wireless signals in the path.

Not sure what else you could want mesh for sure it avoids you having to configure the remote units but it is not like you do that more than once. All your devices are still on the same network and can share files etc. There really is no reason to pay for mesh if you are not going to use the wifi repeater function.

 

[bill001g]

The ac router you want depends a lot on the end devices you have. Many routers have features that end device can not take advantage of so they will just increase the cost for nothing. One of the simpler ones to explain is 4x4 mimo. To make this work the end device would need 4 antenna also. Almost all end devices only have 2 antenna so the best you an get in 2x2 mimo. So 4x4 mimo router will just drop back and only use 2 antenna. Other more common features like parental controls or VPN abilities only you can put a value on.

For the vast majority of people a router that is marked as 1200 or 1450 is more than good enough. These routers are getting very inexpensive. You can get brand name asus and tplink routers for $50 if you do not need fancy thing like USB3 ports.

The router manufactures are getting desperate to find new trash to put on their routers. Some are now putting silly led lights on that are purely cosmetic so it can match your decor.

 

[digitalgriffin]

hi,

I need recommendation. I have a smallish house - but with wifi blocking walls aparently.

I would like recomendartion on a wifi router that comes with a extender.

I have coax connected between the rooms I need to connect. meaning -

in back room - main router will be connected to modem.

there is ethernet connection between back room and front room.

I want to setup a router 2 in front room which is a extension of same ssid of main router'

please help recomend a product that does this.

thanks

Without a doubt my recommendation would be the Netgear R7800 as a router with the EX7000 as an extender. It supports MESH and auto handoff with the latest ROMs, so you can use the same SSID throughout the entire house.

The EX7000 also supports a unique optional high performance mode. This takes on channel on 2.4GHz and rebroadcast it to 5GHz. While 2.4GHz is generally slower, it makes sense as you aren't clogging up both channels repeating the same information. (Take in, rebroadcast to extend range)

If you read the reviews on the R7800 on smallnetbuilder.com, it's ranked at #1 for a reason. It's fast and has an excellent range. The R7800 is a couple years old now and it still gets updates every 2 months (mainly stability and security related.) It even support HT160. But I only received a marginal bump in performance with intel the latest wireless NICs. (The old ones had a bug in them that kept them from working with HT160)

There are known glitches: Don't ever enable anything over the web (like remote administration) because there's a known glitch where your login credentials for admin are cast in plain text. (YIPES) And QOS is only beneficial if you have a SLOW connection. Anything faster than 100 up will slow down your total throughput.

I have recommended this router twice and bought it twice for family. Everyone is extremely pleased with it.

That said if you want more complex features, you'll have to start rolling them yourself and configuring them yourself. And that cost time and money.

A second favorite it TP-Link. But they charge more for the same stuff.