Attn IT Guys - Home internet mesh systems (1 Viewer)

RowdyRawhide

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I am looking at getting a home wifi mesh system. I am coming off of a Nighthawk router and have been pretty pleased with it, but we live in a big house and the router is at one end and I am having trouble with the other ends. I have been trying the ORBI system and so far have not noticed much improvement if any, in fact I am returning it for that reason. I am an IT idiot so looking for some help. I know there are other brands out there...are they better

My question is what are your suggestions for mesh systems and are they worth it. I would be open to other ideas but when I visited this problem a couple of years ago the only option anyone could point me to were plug in extenders that "back fed" through the 110 side. These did not work for this house for some reason.

any help would be appreciated. FWIW I am on broadband if that matters
 
I have an Orbi, and it works well for me on the 5 Ghz band. Not much improvement for 2.4 Ghz.

I haven't tried others, but I've heard good things about Google's solution. My understanding is that it must have access to Google's servers to be managed, which I didn't like.

Other solutions
- a repeater / network extender. I had this previously, but it was slow and meant having multiple ssid's (at least for mine).
- Ethernet over Power. These work great on the same circuit. However, speed drops considerably if it has to go through the circuit breakers. I use these to feed my son's PC. It takes his gaming off of the wireless, and he gets 30 Mbps over the power line (my connection is 150 Mbps).
 
I am using the Orbi also, it has made a tremendous difference in our house.
I purchased the 2 piece system from Amazon.

We were using a combo modem/router from Time Warner. I turned off the router.
 
I use 3 Google mesh points - all 3 are wired to my switches. I live in a large 2 story and have one downstairs and 2 upstairs. They work nearly perfectly. I do occasionally have to reboot the mesh when speeds drop, but recent software updates have made that less of an issue. There are negative comments on the lack of control you might have, but for me it's not an issue as I can set priority device when I need to - and I am able to manage groups with filtering of adult content and on/off times for my kids devices. For what it's worth I have 20 wireless devices and 15 wired devices connected to my network at any given time.
 
@RowdyRawhide , what type of ORBI setup did you have (2 unit, 3 unit, etc), and how far away from the base station was the satellite?

And if you have an Android device, installing a Wifi Analyzer and checking the signal strength in the problem areas may be worthwhile.
 
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@RowdyRawhide , what type of ORBI setup did you have (2 unit, 3 unit, etc), and how far away from the base station was the satellite?
I had the 8000 sq ft one-1 base and 3 satellites. the farthest I could get a satellite to pick up was about 50 ft. but once I went down 1 story to the basement almost directly below that I could not get connection. the irony here is that I can get wifi there with my Nighthawk router...2 bars not 4 though. I am going to try a net gear extender that the dude at best buy convinced me to try...i have 2 weeks to test it out if not i can return it. My problem is my 5600 sq ft house is basically a split level house but it has 5 levels an the router is in a corner about as far from the rest of the house as you can get. The main level is all vaulted ceilings so the house sprawls pretty good, the other kicker is the guy that built had some serious tin foil hat shit going on, because its insulation is based on a "dead air space" theory and it has a triple layer of aluminum foil insulation in the walls. if you took out the windows in my house it would be about as close to a faraday cage as you could get I think. I have trouble with cell service inside the house even......any solutions to that problem as well
 
I'm wondering if the duct work in the house is blocking the 5Ghz signal (fast but short range) used for the backhaul connection between the base and the first satellite. The issue with any extender is that it still has to connect to the router, so it may have the same issue, especially if it has to make that connection at 2.4Ghz (slow but long range).

I might try putting the first satellite on the main (?) floor as close as you can to the spot above the router (or at the point where signal starts to drop), then place the second satellite on the same floor about halfway between the first satellite and the farthest spot you want connectivity.

Other thoughts:
Easiest/ugliest solution is to run CAT5/6 to the area and set up a wired access point.

Depending on house wiring, an Ethernet over Powerline access point might work.
 
I use 3 Google mesh points - all 3 are wired to my switches. I live in a large 2 story and have one downstairs and 2 upstairs. They work nearly perfectly. I do occasionally have to reboot the mesh when speeds drop, but recent software updates have made that less of an issue. There are negative comments on the lack of control you might have, but for me it's not an issue as I can set priority device when I need to - and I am able to manage groups with filtering of adult content and on/off times for my kids devices. For what it's worth I have 20 wireless devices and 15 wired devices connected to my network at any given time.
Christ, how many kids do you have??! :eek: Or do all the pets in the house have access, too?
 

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