from QuincyPigBoy@lemmy.world to selfhosted@lemmy.world on 24 Jun 00:11
https://lemmy.world/post/48557949
I’m living with my dad for the summer and his internet setup makes no sense. I’m a simple man who uses Ethernet when possible and I’ve never had coverage issues because I’m a poor who lives in apartments. So this mesh network stuff is new to me. He has a 3000sqft house and clearly had coverage issues
His setup: 14 year old Nighthawk router/modem being used as a modem Orbi 50 router with no satellites Eero 6 as a second router …no satellites.
My plan: Buy a proper modem Use the Orbi for the router Turn the Eero into an access point and plug it in upstairs via Ethernet. Buy used Orbi satellites for rest of house
My other option is to sell it all, buy a TP Link AXE5400 router, a modem and a couple mesh satellites so that I can start fresh.
What should I do? We don’t need WiFi 7. We don’t even need blazing fast WiFi speeds. Decent speeds, good coverage and simplicity are priority.
Thanks
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Look into a proper modem. For the current Netgear, what model number is it?
For distributed wifi I would ditch the current setup and go with a 3 pod TP-Link Deco X series model. X20 and above I believe have an additional IoT band (if you plan on getting smart devices in the home). The X20 or X50 model should suffice and regularly go on sale.
Your post suggests you have ethernet between 2 areas, so you can use this cable run to wire the main pod to another for full speeds using the wired backhaul. The 3rd unit should work well wirelessly if it is within 30-45ft.
I work at a telecom and these systems seem to work well and we get very few call backs with people reporting issues.
I’m considering a used Arris s33. Current netgear is an x4 ac3200. I just looked into it more and it’s not as old as I thought. DOCSIS 3.1 as well. I’m assuming it still needs to be upgraded?
I’ll definitely consider the Deco x. The x25 is on sale for $142. X20 for $130. X55 for $150. Should I just go with x20?
Yes, all five bedrooms have an Ethernet connection in the wall. An Xfinity decided to cut the cables out but I just rewired them all. Nobody in the house will use their ports though… they want WiFi. Anyway, yes, I have five connections upstairs. Router is on first floor.
Awesome info. Thank you very much for the response.
Just to be clear, if the current setup covers most of the house and WiFi speeds aren’t important, I shouldn’t just buy more orbi satellites to use with the Orbi router and a new modem to save money? I don’t mind spending the money but the other three people in the house are older men who are watching YouTube and looking at Facebook marketplace. They can’t even be bothered to run Ethernet cable from the wall to the PC’s.
Anyway, thank you for the reply.
You can certainly keep using the Netgear X4, make sure to log into it and double check the firmware is up to date. If this was my setup I would disable the wireless of the Netgear alltogether, and use the Deco for wifi. You can use 3 ethernet runs to connect the Deco pods to various areas in the home. If the coverage is sufficient there will be no need for the Netgear wireless broadcast. Is this a touch overkill? Maybe… but it will simplify the setup tremendously.
After the Deco is setup, make sure you change it from Router mode to Access Point mode to avoid double NAT, and various other issues. You will have 1 ethernet port left on the Netgear on the main floor for anything else, and (depending on the Deco model) 1 or 2 ethernet ports at each pod to use. You can a2lays break this connection out further with a cheap gigabit unmanaged switch.
If you are a bit tech savvy you can try a similar setup with the Orbi and Eero, but will have the added burden of managing those devices with their own own app. You will also lose the graceful wireless handoff that you will get from a dedicated mesh network. In theory you can give the Orbi and Eero the same wifi name (SSID) and password, which will simplify your devices connecting to wifi as you roam around the house.
Depending on prices for additional units, you can certainly purchase more Orbi and Eero pods instead and go that route. As mentioned, you will want to pick one or the other. Personally I would choose Eero 6 for the WiFi 6 capabilities.
Hope this explanation helps!!
Is the modem causing issues? If it can handle the line speed of the internet connection I wouldn’t waste money replacing it.
I would stick to one system, orbi or eero, not both.
I’m honestly not sure. I think it might be. When I play games, my ping is high. I’m not sure if you play anything but battlefield 1 was around 100, even though I think that’s an issue with the lobbies. Arc Raiders is giving me regular network/performance issue icons. I’m getting a ping and packet loss notification multiple times per game.
I’m on xfinity in Massachusetts so it supposed to be one of the top performance providers in the country.
And yeah, I’ll likely ditch the Eero and buy Orbi satellites if I don’t get rid of it all and start with a new system.
Test your real ping from the modem and from a wired connection directly (no wifi).
That will give you a good reference of what to expect in term of latency and bandwidth. Do the test multiple time at different moment of the day. The best results are usually during the night, after midnight. If you have optic fiber, the difference should not be so big.
If the ping is bad from this point, no materials in the home would fix that unfortunately.
For gaming, it’s better to rely on wired connection than wifi. Even more if the wifi is bouncing from wifi relay to the modem.
WiFi might be the main cause of the ping issues. I would test on Ethernet to rule it out.
What we did in my dads house was just to repurpouse old wifi routers as access points and put them everywhere where there was no coverage. But we pulled Ethernet all the way to each of them. Then we put the same SSID and password so everything would just switch to the one with the atrongest signal automatically.
Bonus points if the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz channels use the same SSID and security. I can’t stand when people separate them — who wants to sit there and switch networks all day trying to find the best one? Just let the clients do it on their own.
Do not set up multiple APs. Use a real mesh network designed to be used together.
Multiple APs with the same SSID will not only interfere with each other, they will hold on to clients for way longer than they should, meaning as you walk around the house, you’ll have super weak connections, even if you’re close to the next AP.
Mesh networks talk to each other over a lower band to coordinate both interference and clients, so they work way better.
If you must have a specific router, just use it as a router, and set up the mesh router and satellites in AP mode.
Putting random stuff into AP mode is sketchy, but usually works. Modern equipment in particular usually supports proper roaming, and clients are smart enough to change BSSID based on strength. Old and/or cheap equipment is less reliable because of poor or nonexistent roaming support.
If you want to do it the right way, get a couple real APs and pull Ethernet back to a switch. Ubiquiti is fine for prosumer, and you’re less likely to get “help my wifi stopped working and you need to come fix it” calls.
How many APs depends on house layout and what it’s built out of.
Most importantly, DON’T get a bunch of standalone mesh repeaters. The cheapest ones literally just rebroadcast your traffic, meaning speed takes a huge hit with each hop. There are better ones, but even then they’re nowhere near as good as APs with Ethernet.
dont mix and match, since you mention there is an Ethernet link from downstairs to upstairs, get a multi-node mesh system and use that Ethernet as a backbone link between two nodes.
@quincypigboy@lemmy.world this is not a self-hosting discussion, but networking. A better fit for your question would be !networking@sh.itjust.works which covers these sort of questions.
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