Recommend me a mesh router

[bschoolprof 6254]

noob question.  I have ethernet throughout the house, and it's a big house because of surly 1%, so I use a couple of fairly cheap wireless routers and set them as access points for WiFi to get better coverage.  Is there an advantage to using a mesh WiFi system instead of this setup?

[Hate 20108]

Yes.  In your configuration, you most likely have to manage the AP (access point) you are connected to meaning you may not always be connected to the closest AP.  For example, if you have AP 1 and AP 2 located at different sides of the house (let's say at the farthest points East and West in your house and they are named using this convention) and you walk from East to West, your device may stay connected to your East AP with a weaker signal based on your location. 

With a mesh system, there is no East and West AP.  There are only AP's.  They are named the same and the router manages which AP you are connected to based on signal strength for the connected device (usually, but not always the AP closest to your device).  If you move from one room to the other, it will "hand off" your device to the next AP without you having to manage it manually.  Does that makes sense? 

Edited April 18, 2020 by Hate

[bschoolprof 6254]

52 minutes ago, Hate said:

Yes.  In your configuration, you most likely have to manage the AP (access point) you are connected to meaning you may not always be connected to the closest AP.  For example, if you have AP 1 and AP 2 located at different sides of the house (let's say at the farthest points East and West in your house and they are named using this convention) and you walk from East to West, your device may stay connected to your East AP with a weaker signal based on your location. 

With a mesh system, there is no East and West AP.  There are only AP's.  They are named the same and the router manages which AP you are connected to based on signal strength for the connected device (usually, but not always the AP closest to your device).  If you move from one room to the other, it will "hand off" your device to the next AP without you having to manage it manually.  Does that makes sense? 

Yes that makes sense.  Right now, I "self manage" by naming the access points differently so I always know which one I'm on.  I don't walk around much when I'm watching porn surfing the net, so it's not that big a deal.  But I can see the advantage of the mesh system handoff.  

[Baboontyme 2812]

5 hours ago, texasjacket said:

A lot ISP have been having problems due to the increase in the demand but is the router prompting for an update?

No, current firmware is up to date. I want to say it's the ISP but I don't know. 

[Dbeasy 15051]

So this is what I got. I think it was a refurb. The setup was not that great. Very straightforward but I had to do it 3-4x before it took. My speeds are impetuous, my style is impregnable. I went from ~ 40 down throughout the house to 180 in the back yard and 250 in most other places (cable). But I'm having weird hiccups and I don't know if it's my ISP or my new setup. I rarely had hiccups before. I will be watching a show on a streaming service and I will get a 2-3 second pause before it resumes. Today my internet dropped while I was on a web call which I've been doing for ~ 10 years without any drops. But my phone still shows ~ 250 down at the same time. wth. 

I don’t trust refurbished electronics. Sounds like you got a bad unit. I’d send it back.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13512]

On a related topic, I bumped up my xfinity internet bandwidth yesterday. Was paying $50 for 75 mbps. Now it’s $60 for 600.  my own modem tops out close to 500 so I won’t see the full benefit.  Upload went from 5 to 15 but speed tests are showing me 18. With more work video and audio chats, I figure this can’t hurt and is only $10 more per month.

anyways everyone should use the crisis to look for deals from the ISPs. I was tempted to switch to at&t gigabit service but didn’t want to deal with the installation. I know some of y’all get ridiculous good and bad deals. Not trying to get into a one-up conversation just recommend that this is a good time to look at options.

 

[dirtonia 269]

Google Wifi and Google Fiber.

[Hate 20108]

I forgot to mention another thing about most “mesh” systems is that the AP’s will usually “daisy chain” off of each other which means they don’t have to have a Cat5 connection in order to provide network connectivity. It’s nice if you have an older house and can’t run cable drops to where you need to place the AP.

[Quagmire 2147]

Google Wifi and Google Fiber.

Now bump your service down to 100-200 and save some money cause you’ll never use all that.

[rage-a-holic 4399]

26 minutes ago, Quagmire said:

Now bump your service down to 100-200 and save some money cause you’ll never use all that.

Not really an option with Google Fiber. They phased out 100/100 service a while back. I moved back to Spectrum 400/20 Austin service for $30 out the door locked in for 2 years. No major issues after 2 months.

[tbone_ 14123]

Cox fiber. Cat 6. Wired connection. Got 900 down on a test the other day.

[Okie State 3821]

I thought it had been discussed time and time again that speeds like this are completely unnecessary for your home.

[milkman 428]

Yes that makes sense.  Right now, I "self manage" by naming the access points differently so I always know which one I'm on.  I don't walk around much when I'm watching porn surfing the net, so it's not that big a deal.  But I can see the advantage of the mesh system handoff.  

I’m in the same boat and have two separate access points on either end of the house. It’s ridiculous having to switch back and forth but it’s what I made work for all these years. With the wife and kiddos home all day it seems the wireless is getting bogged down even more. Would a mesh system help out?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Hate 20108]

Maybe.  You could all be connected to the same AP if you don't actively manage which one you are connected to which would absolutely cause slowness on that AP.  A mesh will automatically switch people the AP that has the best signal quality for their device.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Hate

[deft 6849]

On 4/14/2020 at 1:28 PM, Orange&White said:

The lady wanted better wifi on the patio 

TL/DR: Don't by the TP-Link Deco system.

Wireless repeaters cut the speed in half I'm pretty sure.  

 

 

I've had google mesh wifi for quite some time.  Easy setup and it just works. 

[tbone_ 14123]

I thought it had been discussed time and time again that speeds like this are completely unnecessary for your home.

Sounds like something someone with dsl would say.

[joe dirt 285]

we’ve had an orbi rbk40 since 2017 and it has been pretty awesome until the last 6 mo or so. now if a power surge knocks it offline, when it comes back up, less than half my shit connects again. i’ll have to factory reset multiple times to get it all up and running again. we have around 50 connected things at all times, most of which are smart switches and power receptacles. it’s become really unreliable. 

in the last few months i’ve tried google wifi, google nest and now nighthawk wifi6 mesh. they all suck. i have at&t fiber gig (fight me)and each of these systems is averaging less than 100mbps where the orbi was anywhere from 300-350. i need something better. someone help.  

[dcbc 14484]

17 hours ago, joe dirt said:

we’ve had an orbi rbk40 since 2017 and it has been pretty awesome until the last 6 mo or so. now if a power surge knocks it offline, when it comes back up, less than half my shit connects again. i’ll have to factory reset multiple times to get it all up and running again. we have around 50 connected things at all times, most of which are smart switches and power receptacles. it’s become really unreliable. 

in the last few months i’ve tried google wifi, google nest and now nighthawk wifi6 mesh. they all suck. i have at&t fiber gig (fight me)and each of these systems is averaging less than 100mbps where the orbi was anywhere from 300-350. i need something better. someone help.  

Assuming the device you're using is AC.  How close is it to the wifi point?  I know the theoretical speeds of n and ac are much higher than real world speeds.  300---350 mbps is impressive.  With Google, I pretty reliably get 100 mbps where the modem is seeing 200 mbps.  I don't worry about it much though because connections are rock solid and everything does what I need it to do no matter where it's located in the house.

[joe dirt 285]

19 hours ago, dcbc said:

Assuming the device you're using is AC.  How close is it to the wifi point?  I know the theoretical speeds of n and ac are much higher than real world speeds.  300---350 mbps is impressive.  With Google, I pretty reliably get 100 mbps where the modem is seeing 200 mbps.  I don't worry about it much though because connections are rock solid and everything does what I need it to do no matter where it's located in the house.

my phone supports AX, but the orbi is AC where i was getting 300-350. i’m trying the nighthawk AX, and if i’m next to one of the points, i’m seeing ~200. otherwise it’s now avg around 70. handover on this nighthawk system sucks too. the fam is constantly complaining about intermittent drops. back to costco this goes and on to the next i suppose. 

[Hate 20108]

Get the eero pro.  From their website:

 

128 devices

 

One eero can support up to 128 devices (you read that right). That's one very connected home. However, if those devices are heavily using the Internet for activities like streaming video, you'll probably see best results using up to 30 devices with each eero.

https://support.eero.com/hc/en-us/articles/207926363-How-many-devices-can-one-eero-support-

[kmac30 416]

I got a Google Nest mesh a couple weeks ago. 4 pack. Couple of the points drop off a lot. I haven’t been super happy with it. Trying to figure out where the best positioning is. They talk about 2 rooms, but that’s ambiguous. Two walls from router to 1 point will show “good” connection, then be weak or offline next check. Little frustrating.

[Lobwedgephil 1139]

6 hours ago, Hate said:

Get the eero pro.  From their website:

 

128 devices

 

One eero can support up to 128 devices (you read that right). That's one very connected home. However, if those devices are heavily using the Internet for activities like streaming video, you'll probably see best results using up to 30 devices with each eero.

https://support.eero.com/hc/en-us/articles/207926363-How-many-devices-can-one-eero-support-

 

That is my thought as well, I regularly get 300-400 on my at&t gigabit internet wireless, but as every one of these are giving him under 100, I suspect it is an at&t issue and not the routers he keeps trying. 

Edited June 1, 2020 by Lobwedgephil

[joe dirt 285]

18 hours ago, Lobwedgephil said:

 

That is my thought as well, I regularly get 300-400 on my at&t gigabit internet wireless, but as every one of these are giving him under 100, I suspect it is an at&t issue and not the routers he keeps trying. 

you might be on to something. when i installed the nighthawk mesh last week, the speed tested at just over 400 from the at&t gateway to the first router. i just tested again this morning and it’s now just over 200. the gateway is only a few months old but maybe it’s just a bad one.

the only options in my derkaville neighborhood are at&t and suddenlink. might be time to ditch uverse. 

[Lobwedgephil 1139]

11 minutes ago, joe dirt said:

you might be on to something. when i installed the nighthawk mesh last week, the speed tested at just over 400 from the at&t gateway to the first router. i just tested again this morning and it’s now just over 200. the gateway is only a few months old but maybe it’s just a bad one.

the only options in my derkaville neighborhood are at&t and suddenlink. might be time to ditch uverse. 

Yeah that should be higher, I test 900 and higher from the router plugged into the at&t gateway. Maybe try At&t first and get a replacement gateway, and then you can test mesh systems once you have the proper speed you should be getting. 

[joe dirt 285]

2 hours ago, Lobwedgephil said:

Yeah that should be higher, I test 900 and higher from the router plugged into the at&t gateway. Maybe try At&t first and get a replacement gateway, and then you can test mesh systems once you have the proper speed you should be getting. 

speedtest from fiber line to the gateway just read at 970. so there’s something stupid happening between the gateway and router. probably user error of some sort. 

[hornbri 1398]

Gateway could be a problem. Also check your ethernet cable to your wifi base, if you are using a older one that can also be the bottleneck. 

Edited June 2, 2020 by hornbri

[Lobwedgephil 1139]

23 minutes ago, joe dirt said:

speedtest from fiber line to the gateway just read at 970. so there’s something stupid happening between the gateway and router. probably user error of some sort. 

Maybe wifi interference, are you disabling the wifi from the At&t gateway? 

[dcbc 14484]

3 hours ago, Lobwedgephil said:

Maybe wifi interference, are you disabling the wifi from the At&t gateway? 

This may be the culprit.  I haven't had AT&T internet for a long time, but recall practically having to go to night school to get a computer science associate's degree to get the gateway to just pass the signal cleanly through to the router I had at the time.

Edited June 2, 2020 by dcbc

[kmac30 416]

Do not switch to suddenlink. Their business is totally jacked. I cannot stand them.

[Catpfish 618]

I have the Orbi and have had very little issue with it.  Of course, my 14.8 Mbps down and 1.17Mbps up probably don't tax it very much.

Yeah, and that speed costs about $150/month east of Derkaville

[dcbc 14484]

On 6/2/2020 at 4:05 PM, kmac30 said:

Do not switch to suddenlink. Their business is totally jacked. I cannot stand them.

Other than my having to call them once per year to get my internet bill back down, I haven't found the product itself to be anything but rock solid.  Of course, I wish I could get unlimited data at a lower (cheaper) speed point.  But speed has been really consistent and usually faster than advertised at the modem.  I don't think I've had more than maybe one short outage per year, if that, over the last 4 years.

Had AT&T before that and it wasn't even close.  Plus, it was overpriced for a noncompetitive product (no uber high speed fiber available through them at my house unfortunately).

So serious question.  What does "Their business is totally jacked" mean?  They seem like a typical cable company to me, which isn't exactly a compliment. 

[kmac30 416]

Did your bill/account not get messed up a few months ago with Altice merger and new system? My cable and internet go down constantly. Channels disappear for hours (msg says something about it coming back soon). I moved last year and they kept my phone number attached to the old address when they set up an account. Every time I would call, they weren’t able to verify my account because they found the old address first and would shut the conversation down. It was a cluster. Then, they wouldn’t remove my number from the other account without that client calling. I could go on. We had ATT before moving here and I would switch in a heart beat. Suddenlink and Comcast are the only options here.

[joe dirt 285]

12 hours ago, kmac30 said:

Did your bill/account not get messed up a few months ago with Altice merger and new system? My cable and internet go down constantly. Channels disappear for hours (msg says something about it coming back soon). I moved last year and they kept my phone number attached to the old address when they set up an account. Every time I would call, they weren’t able to verify my account because they found the old address first and would shut the conversation down. It was a cluster. Then, they wouldn’t remove my number from the other account without that client calling. I could go on. We had ATT before moving here and I would switch in a heart beat. Suddenlink and Comcast are the only options here.

their current offer is $55/mo forever for 1gb unltd data which is tempting, since i wouldn’t have to call every year to extend promos.

i called at&t yesterday and had a new (to me anyway) gateway delivered today. i asked for a specific model and was assured that’s what it’d get. instead, they sent me the same model as the one i’m exchanging. we’ll see what happens but after having uverse for like 10 years, i’m close to switching. gives me a chance to finally cut the cord too.

 

[joe dirt 285]

new gateway is installed and orbi is connected. exactly zero change, so 300-350 from the orbi, 500s from gateway to orbi. i would think i’d be seeing much more from gateway to orbi. bc there’s no change with the replaced gateway, could it be as simple as needing a better cable? 

[Hate 20108]

new gateway is installed and orbi is connected. exactly zero change, so 300-350 from the orbi, 500s from gateway to orbi. i would think i’d be seeing much more from gateway to orbi. bc there’s no change with the replaced gateway, could it be as simple as needing a better cable? 

It could. Did you put the AT&T router into bridge mode?

[joe dirt 285]

14 minutes ago, Hate said:

It could. Did you put the AT&T router into bridge mode?

i don’t know a whole lot about it, but apparently the model gateway i have can’t be put in bridge mode only dmz+ mode or some such. so i followed some gateway specific instructions i found on at&t’s forums to do dmz and also turned off the wifi signals. guess i’ll grab me a new cable tmrw and see what happens. 

at this point with as much time as i’m wasting, it’s probably diminishing returns. but goddammit i’m paying for it so i want to see it. as an aside, the next tier down is 300mbps at the same price as the gig service. 

[4th&Five 41554]

Since I have google fiber it looks like my best option is nest. If I add that to my router will it erase all the shit on my dvr? Wife was on wheel of fortune and doesn’t want to lose the recording...

[Gil Bang 25960]

I saw that episode. She’s got nice tits.

[4th&Five 41554]

she does actually...thx!

the wheel was cruel though.

[Bill Clay 48]

TTIWWPOB'sBs

 

[Bill Clay 48]

The price is wrong, bitch.

[shnsajax 3591]

Bumping this as I need to get one too. Anything new to know?

[Hate 20108]

No.

[shnsajax 3591]

23 minutes ago, Hate said:

No.

I like it!

[Felix 607]

I just got the google one and it was ridiculously easy to set up and my speed and signal have been outstanding all over the house including the back porch and garage area.  Costco had it on sale with 4 access points.  Took me maybe 30 minutes to set it all up using the app.  Not terribly configurable but I don't care about that.  I just want it to work.  I did a side by side comparison on my old router with my laptop and saw significant improvement in ping and downloads.  Uploads was about the same. 

[tbone_ 14123]

No concern about letting google record everything you do online?

[Felix 607]

None whatsoever.  They already know everything about me.  If you carry a smartphone then you basically have given up any privacy argument.

[shnsajax 3591]

No concern about letting google record everything you do online?

I actually prefer Google to know my preferences in porn. Less clutter.

[Superhero 8830]

eero user here with a Pro and 2 beacons (because I hate wires). It works great in our modest 2,400 2-story house.

Early in the safer-at-home order, I was as working in the dungeon garage, and was dropping video calls all the time (router was in the garage 20' away). Installed a beacon in the garage, and voila, no more dropped calls.

I like the app - being able to disable the kids' devices when they're whining. I also know when my SIL comes to our house because I'd get a pop-up saying she joined the network.

[Gil Bang 25960]

On 1/4/2021 at 11:18 AM, Felix said:

I just got the google one and it was ridiculously easy to set up and my speed and signal have been outstanding all over the house including the back porch and garage area.  Costco had it on sale with 4 access points.  Took me maybe 30 minutes to set it all up using the app.  Not terribly configurable but I don't care about that.  I just want it to work.  I did a side by side comparison on my old router with my laptop and saw significant improvement in ping and downloads.  Uploads was about the same. 

I could have written this myself, down to getting it on sale at Costco.  I'm several months in, and quite happy with it.