Question What sort of Mesh Networking Should I Buy?

[Oasis Curator]

I currently have a Tp-Link Deco, with three towers around my house.
I upgraded to a 1Gbs line. I can get around 600mbs on my phone, wired, strangely is a bit less (although that goes around 15m, using flat cables, via a 1Gbs switch).

This works well but although I only bought it a couple of years ago, I am a little FOMO about WiFi 6, which my system doesn't support.

I'm potentially moving to a new house.

Now's the time to get thing set up nicely.

What sort of system should I look at getting?

Someone mentioned a Ubiquiti Dream router, but it's a lot of money for what I need, which is a simple Guest WiFi, Home WiFi and being able to walk around being connected to strong WiFi all the time.

Any others I should look at?

 

[bill001g]

Key here is to not use "mesh" at all if you have any other options.

Mesh is mostly a marketing word for wireless repeater. Unless you spend big money for units that have extra wifi radio chips to connect between the remote units and the main router they have all the problems of very cheap repeaters. Even if they do have the extra radio chips they still will trade substantial amounts of bandwidth/speed for coverage.

So the very best way to extend you wifi is to use AP connected via ethernet. The next best option is to use MoCA instead of ethernet to connect to AP. You then consider power networks. These at times can have less bandwidth than wifi but the connection is much more stable. You have to be careful about chasing bandwidth numbers. Powerline networks most times exceed 100mbps which is more than good enough for any time of application that can run on portable wifi device.

When you have no other options you then consider mesh units. Hard to say if any mesh units are really better than others. Problem is you can not trust any type of review or testing. Not because it is not ture but because wifi is more affected by the difference between houses than the difference between wifi systems. So you can't really say that just because unit A is better than unit B in the reviewers house it will be better in your house. You are pretty much have to select in the dark....at least when it comes to coverage/performance. Things like ease of use are still very valid concerns and those reviews are useful.

Uniquiti stuff is targeted at the more advanced or small business installs. It tends to have more features than many other mesh systems. Hard to say if it is "better?" depends if you need those features. Because of the advanced feature support it tends to be much more complex to configure.

Note never use any kind of flat ethernet cable. All these cable are not technically ethernet cables. None meet the standards of pure copper wire with wire size 22-24. This means you have no idea if they will work espeically at longer distances.

Key on any wifi system install is going to be to test wifi signals in your new house. For wifi repeater/mesh systems to work best the remote unit must be placed in a location that it gets strong signal from the main route but can still deliver signals to remote rooms. If it was one big open room you could say 1/2 but with walls and ceiling absorbing stuff it is all trial and error. You never place the remote device in the remote room even though many of the marketing pictures imply that. The repeater will get the same bad signals as any other device in the room and then repeat it. Your end device might think it is getting better signal levels but the signal level is only 1 part of the data rates and you now have 2 radio signals that you must deal with.