Question Trying to find solution to an odd home network problem (mesh/repeater/idk)

[berty6294]

Hi All,

I am currently building a detached garage that I need to run internet to.

I'm also looking to upgrade what's in my home.

My situation is I have a rancher where the modem is on the north side of the home, and the garage is off of the south side of the home. I have a conduit running from the south side of the home to the garage that has power and also has cat5e. There is no cat5e between the north side of the house and the south side of the house.

My plan was to use a 3 point mesh network where I have my main at the router, my 2nd at the south side of the home, and the 3rd in the garage with a wired backhaul to the 2nd. The main and 2nd should be just fine to connect wirelessly, they are on the same floor, one wall between them about 35 feet apart. The 2nd and 3rd are a bit further away, about 75 feet block walls between them, wifi not likely an option but a cat5e exists between them.

Is it possible with these mesh setups to backhaul a 3rd node to the 2nd node over cat5e which is then backhauled from the 2nd to the main over wifi? I have been liking the positive reviews and price of the tplink deco series. We do aren't looking for blazing-fast speeds as our Rokus are hardwired but the wifi would be mostly used in the garage for music and youtube tutorials as i struggle on whatever project is underway. Will also be used to communicate with a Mr cool HVAC unit in the garage.

Any suggestions? Will, what I'm trying to do work? Am I missing an easier option?

Thanks all!

 

[bill001g]

It should in theory work but there is no real standard for how mesh systems work. Most are very proprietary so it may take some searching.

If we look at this more simple the second unit is acting as a repeater. The third device is just acting as a simple AP plugged in the second. If there was no mesh software it should just work because the second unit does not really know what is plugged in via ethernet.

It all depends if the mesh software tries to be too smart.

I really hate any kind of repeater in the design no matter what name they call it. Have you considered other ways to get it all hardwired. Do you have coax tv cable, you could use moca devices to connect. You could also consider powerline networks.

Any wifi you can eliminate in the path will make things much more stable over all and also free bandwidth for the device that have no option but to run on wifi.

 

[berty6294]

It should in theory work but there is no real standard for how mesh systems work. Most are very proprietary so it may take some searching.

If we look at this more simple the second unit is acting as a repeater. The third device is just acting as a simple AP plugged in the second. If there was no mesh software it should just work because the second unit does not really know what is plugged in via ethernet.

It all depends if the mesh software tries to be too smart.

I really hate any kind of repeater in the design no matter what name they call it. Have you considered other ways to get it all hardwired. Do you have coax tv cable, you could use moca devices to connect. You could also consider powerline networks.

Any wifi you can eliminate in the path will make things much more stable over all and also free bandwidth for the device that has no option but to run on wifi.

I've been back and forth on trying to pull cat5e to that south corner of the house, but I really don't want to open up my walls again. Powerline could be an option, but in reality, my home is small enough that a single main router point is plenty enough for good wifi in the whole home. The only reason I'm considering mesh is that it could fill in a void where I can now have some kinda wifi in the yard between the house and the garage, as well as the garage.

I'm thinking, 99% of the usage will be plenty fine in the house, should be just as good as any other wifi router. The only poor performance I may have is when using wifi in the garage (which would be for nothing more than the occasional youtube video/hvac control). Not sure if this is just wishful thinking, or decent logic lol.

As you said, it all depends on the mesh software trying to be smarter than I want it to be. I feel like this is a unique situation, but at the same time, I have to believe somebody else out there has been in a similar situation.

 

[gggplaya]

Ranchers are easy to run ethernet, do you have an attic or crawl space(underneath house), or a open ceiling basement to run ethernet into?? You don't need to open up wall, just cut a 1gang box in the wall, and use a large wire shank auger on a drill (6ft https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Tool-EA75072-Installer-72-Inch/dp/B00IP87QHO ). Run your ethernet up or down to the south side, then run it to the garage.

How far is the detached garage from your house?

 

[berty6294]

Ranchers are easy to run ethernet, do you have an attic or crawl space(underneath house), or a open ceiling basement to run ethernet into?? You don't need to open up wall, just cut a 1gang box in the wall, and use a large wire shank auger on a drill (6ft https://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Tool-EA75072-Installer-72-Inch/dp/B00IP87QHO ). Run your ethernet up or down to the south side, then run it to the garage.

How far is the detached garage from your house?

It's a bit more difficult than that for mine. Trust me, I built it haha. (and regret leaving out a lot of things). I don't want to run wires outside of the house for other reasons, but the main one being I can't get it into the house where the main router is anyway. The easiest way would be to open up the wall and ceiling where the 2nd node would be and access the cat5e cable that's in the bedroom right above. Would require opening a wall there as well, everything is filled with insulation and would need to get through the bottom plate of the upstairs and top blate of the basement walls. All the while avoiding the 240v lines for the garage that are between the two, as well as hvac coolant lines that run in there as well.

Long way of saying, performance isn't needed, just something that kinda works which is why I'm hoping i can get away with wifi backhaul from the 2nd node.