[Technology] Upgrading Mesh Network

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

I have an older Tenda Nova mesh setup but want to upgrade this to support Wifi6 as we have moved house and I can’t run a cable to hardwire the works laptop in my home office. I will run off a Virgin Media hub 4 1 gig connection.

Although my residence is not large, the office is in a converted conservatory so I have found the third unit works to get around the old issue of Wi-Fi not working well through glass.

Any recommendations for a three unit setup at a reasonable cost? For example, the TP Link Deco X20 AX1800 seems to have decent reviews.

Thanks

 

[Change at Barnham]

This is surely what the Ignore Thread was designed for.
I now know how a dyslexic must feel.

edit: p.s. Good luck, I'm sure you'll get some help from one of the clever people on NSC.
(I didn't mean to sound rude)

 

[BBassic]

Who's going to be the one to post the "turn it off and on again" meme?

 

[Badger]

I have an older Tenda Nova mesh setup but want to upgrade this to support Wifi6 as we have moved house and I can’t run a cable to hardwire the works laptop in my home office. I will run off a Virgin Media hub 4 1 gig connection.

Although my residence is not large, the office is in a converted conservatory so I have found the third unit works to get around the old issue of Wi-Fi not working well through glass.

Any recommendations for a three unit setup at a reasonable cost? For example, the TP Link Deco X20 AX1800 seems to have decent reviews.

Thanks

I recently switched to Deco and it's been working really well. My provider included a Deco X50 and I bought a pair Deco X20s to complete the setup.

 

[Since1982]

I have three Deco X55s that cover a three storey good size house brilliantly and with absolutely no fuss. I added a s/h E4 to give a better signal out into the garden and garage.

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

I have three Deco X55s that cover a three storey good size house brilliantly and with absolutely no fuss. I added a s/h E4 to give a better signal out into the garden and garage.

I recently switched to Deco and it's been working really well. My provider included a Deco X50 and I bought a pair Deco X20s to complete the setup.

Thanks both - it seems like the X50 and X55 have very similar specs so this is really helpful feedback

 

[lost in london]

Eero has worked really well for us for about 4 years

 

[Hudson Hawk]

I've got 3 of the the ASUS ZenWiFi XT9 which are Triband and Wifi 6. This was coming from Linksys Velops.

I read he reviews and the ASUS's are highly rated. So far i have found them much easier to use and the OS is so much slicker with lots of options to optimise and secure your mesh network.

However, i have thick walls and even though these were significantly better, i have still ended up hard wiring the parent node to the child node upstairs.

 

[Clive Walker]

Star Trek is rubbish!

 

[happypig]

I've got 3 of the the ASUS ZenWiFi XT9 which are Triband and Wifi 6. This was coming from Linksys Velops.

I read he reviews and the ASUS's are highly rated. So far i have found them much easier to use and the OS is so much slicker with lots of options to optimise and secure your mesh network.

However, i have thick walls and even though these were significantly better, i have still ended up hard wiring the parent node to the child node upstairs.

At work an oft-quoted mantra was "Radio has no place in a fixed network". It should be the absolute last resort.
All these wi-fi mesh systems (and some of them are ok) are trading ease of installation for reliability.

I have an older Tenda Nova mesh setup but want to upgrade this to support Wifi6 as we have moved house and I can’t run a cable to hardwire the works laptop in my home office.

You can, you just don't want the aggro.
I have a repeater network for the workshop/pub/garden and I had to dig a trench and run an ethernet cable in duct. Worth the few hours work IMO.

 

[Hudson Hawk]

At work an oft-quoted mantra was "Radio has no place in a fixed network". It should be the absolute last resort.
All these wi-fi mesh systems (and some of them are ok) are trading ease of installation for reliability.



You can, you just don't want the aggro.
I have a repeater network for the workshop/pub/garden and I had to dig a trench and run an ethernet cable in duct. Worth the few hours work IMO.

I agree completely but its not always possible or aesthetically pleasing to hard wire the house.

I did it as i wanted a more stable connection in my office for gaming and the WiFi to be stronger upstairs. Out the lounge wall, up the side of the house into the loft, then dropped through the ceiling.

Cable is hid being a unit, otherwise it would look terrible. When i redecorate i might see if it can be chased into the wall or in between the cavity!

 

[lost in london]

All these wi-fi mesh systems (and some of them are ok) are trading ease of installation for reliability.

We have had zero reliability issues with the Eero mesh system.

 

[Questions]

Does it need painting ?

 

[Professor Plum]

Can I ask a question of the people here who seem to know what they're talking about please...?

We do a lot of streaming, and despite having a 1GB service and a couple of extenders supplied by our provider (Lightning Fibre in Eastbourne), we get quite a lot of buffering.

Do these mesh networks talked about here do anything that the ISP's extenders won't do? I'd thought of running cables from the box to the extenders but I'd happily invest a few quid in one of these mesh network systems if that would significantly help. Would avoid the hassle of cabling.

Any general thoughts? Thank you.

 

[thedonkeycentrehalf]

Can I ask a question of the people here who seem to know what they're talking about please...?

We do a lot of streaming, and despite having a 1GB service and a couple of extenders supplied by our provider (Lightning Fibre in Eastbourne), we get quite a lot of buffering.

Do these mesh networks talked about here do anything that the ISP's extenders won't do? I'd thought of running cables from the box to the extenders but I'd happily invest a few quid in one of these mesh network systems if that would significantly help. Would avoid the hassle of cabling.

Any general thoughts? Thank you.

Albeit from one of the the companies selling this stuff, this is a fairly simple overview - https://www.netgear.com/uk/hub/technology/wifi-extender-vs-mesh-wifi/

 

[ozzygull]

I work from home and my office is at the opposite and furthest away from the Wi-Fi unit so I use a TP-Link Powerline adapters and have a physical connection. That works really well for me.

 

[happypig]

Can I ask a question of the people here who seem to know what they're talking about please...?

We do a lot of streaming, and despite having a 1GB service and a couple of extenders supplied by our provider (Lightning Fibre in Eastbourne), we get quite a lot of buffering.

Do these mesh networks talked about here do anything that the ISP's extenders won't do? I'd thought of running cables from the box to the extenders but I'd happily invest a few quid in one of these mesh network systems if that would significantly help. Would avoid the hassle of cabling.

Any general thoughts? Thank you.

What service do you get buffering on ? just one or all of them ?

I'm with LF (150mb - cheapskate) and I don't have any buffering but then both my "big" tellies, Apple TV box, Kodi box and PVR are hardwired. I can watch a 4k youtube stream without issue

Can you put in a temporary cable to see if that works better ? (I've got a couple of 10m cables I could lend you if it helps to narrow it down before you spend money.

 

[Professor Plum]

What service do you get buffering on ? just one or all of them ?

I'm with LF (150mb - cheapskate) and I don't have any buffering but then both my "big" tellies, Apple TV box, Kodi box and PVR are hardwired. I can watch a 4k youtube stream without issue

Can you put in a temporary cable to see if that works better ? (I've got a couple of 10m cables I could lend you if it helps to narrow it down before you spend money.

It's the main TV, furthest from the router that has the most problems. I'm now wondering if the extenders are set up properly as there's one quite close to the TV.

Dumb question -- should the extenders have a separate SSID to the main network ID? I've only ever had one ID in the list, so I'm now wondering if these were set up properly. It's never occurred to me before.

Sorry, just realised that I've hijacked the topic away from mesh networks, though I'm still interested in whether a mesh would work better than the normal extenders provided by the ISP

 

[happypig]

It's the main TV, furthest from the router that has the most problems. I'm now wondering if the extenders are set up properly as there's one quite close to the TV.

Dumb question -- should the extenders have a separate SSID to the main network ID? I've only ever had one ID in the list, so I'm now wondering if these were set up properly. It's never occurred to me before.

Sorry, just realised that I've hijacked the topic away from mesh networks, though I'm still interested in whether a mesh would work better than the normal extenders provided by the ISP

Out of the box an extender will have a separate SSID; for example if your router SSID is "HomeRouter" the extender will be "HomeRouter_EXT".
A mesh network will have the same SSID for all the nodes and will hand off between them as needed.
You can (as I have for my workshop/garden) use a second router connected by cable with the same SSID but with the DHCP server turned off. It's not as seamless as mesh but it's much cheaper.
I'd suggest turning the extender off and see if it makes a difference.

 

[Professor Plum]

Out of the box an extender will have a separate SSID; for example if your router SSID is "HomeRouter" the extender will be "HomeRouter_EXT".
A mesh network will have the same SSID for all the nodes and will hand off between them as needed.
You can (as I have for my workshop/garden) use a second router connected by cable with the same SSID but with the DHCP server turned off. It's not as seamless as mesh but it's much cheaper.
I'd suggest turning the extender off and see if it makes a difference.

Turning off the extender doesn’t seem to make any difference. So it looks like they were never configured properly. Well, that certainly explains my TV buffering . Thank you for the general info. All useful stuff. My decision now is whether to use new Lightning Fibre extenders (£4 each per month) or buy a mesh system from Amazon (v roughly £300 or so).