[Closed] Exteding Wifi in house - options?

Unless your house is very large or very solidly built probably just a decent aftermarket router will do the job.

I bought a pack of those Powerline extenders, that send the router signal through the electrical ring main, re-broadcasting the WiFi & giving an Ethernet port wherever they are plugged in. They work really well & were a doddle to set-up..

I got a Tenda mesh system after being recommended it by someone on here and it works brilliantly. Good signal throughout the house and right to the top of the garden and no stutters when switching between extenders.

Power line solution works very well

I’ve got the TP Link powerline extenders in mine. For the extremes of the house it’s perfect but where is struggled was where there was overlap of 2 routers. Even though they have the same SSID devices see them differently and I’d get dead spots and issues with Wi-fi printers as quite often your phone would be attached to a different router than the printer.

Move got round this by changing the SSID for the router in the attic where the printers are and then live with a couple of dead spots.

If money is no issue, a few posts on here recently talk about how good the mesh Wi-fi systems are which get over the issues I’ve had above but it’s quite a hefty investment

My house is long and thin. I’ve got the new BT mesh network. 3 discs that all talk to each other, so just 1 network and 1 ID. Works really well, plus I can set the kids devices on it to lock out at certain times.

£160 for 3 discs.

Tenda Mesh here - excellent and worth the small premium over regular extenders IMHO

+1 for the bt mesh system, we've been using it for about 5 months, strong signal all over the house and no issues with printers etc being on the "wrong" router or tvs losing WiFi signal.
It's pretty easy to setup, and you can usually find a second hand set on ebay or gumtree etc for less than £100.

I had real issues in my house ... and as my office is in the attic , it was affecting work .
I bought a mesh system - seems stable
I still lose MBPS around the house but it is workable with and I can run Skype For Business etc .
Some issues are cause by Virgin Media being lying bastards about their MBPS down fibre, mind.
Netplugs were useless ....
Anyone want to buy some?

Definitely a mesh system. Powerline extenders are ok, but you will not seamlessly hop from one ap to another.

Google mesh is awesome, pricey but awesome.

we have a long thin house, with thick concrete walls through out - probably about 2k feet

i tried four google mesh dotted around the house. It was rubbish, despite the £500 (?) cost. Couldn't get out of the first room, (thick walls...), despite trying to hop upstairs, then along the top, and back down. So trying to go through floors and not walls. It couldn't keep a connection

what does work is a load of TPlink powerlines - basically one in each room. If you time it right on amazon, you can get returned ones for half price. They all have the same SSID, and because of the thick walls, there's no real overlap. Total cost - maybe £150? You can of course also 'hardwire' through most TPlinks, to take TVs etc off the wifi

You only notice an issue when using the VOIP phone and moving between rooms; you have to remember not to

I have been considering a similar problem but mine is more to do with wifi in the garden. I am planing on placing a external POE wifi access point in the loft or on the Tv aerial mast. To help with the network switching problems I have found this wifi priority app

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.za.flash.wifiprioritizer&hl=en

yet to take the plunge and do but the gear and do all the setup so theory untested.

Fixed computers, like a desktop, wired Ethernet. If several around the house or a NAS somewhere, gigabit switch to network them if you'll be transferring files, videos etc around the house, rather than just download and stream off Internet.

The rest, if not huge place, a really good wireless access point in a central location, otherwise a mesh setup. Got a Tp-link access point and that can be combined with more of the same if I want. Can be set as repeaters though wire to each may be better.

Replacement router is changing the modem built in that accesses the ISP and that can lead to issues or at least faff setting up, but might have success. Really the best thing to do is just locate them centrally as many are tucked away in the corner of the house where most the signal is lost through the walls, though if that means a long phone cable to the socket, don't do that as you risk signal issues with the ISP. Shortest run of phone cable possible is best.

don't think i'm up for investing in a mesh network.

with the current tpe 1 box it's not that bad. can get it in all the places if i'm positioned right. that's a mk1 orange livebox, with fibre i'll be on a mk4 which will presumably be better and i think it does dual band 2.5 and 5ghz

so if i'm on repeaters through cable will they each be seperate acces points so i'd need to cahnge if i move to the bedroom for example?

I have an extender that taps into the electrical circuit. Works well and easy to set up. Got it from Currys and wasn't that expensive. Certainly cheaper than the BT discs thing.

Note on 5ghz. It's better in that it's a lot less congested, but the range is shorter. Dual 2.4/5 you can either run separate SSIDs and you have to manually switch between them, or run the same and devices will pick one. Not necessarily the best though, but some access points can be set to steer towards 5ghz and devices might drop to 2.4 if the signal is lost. But then in my experience they sit on that network until they lose a signal or you disconnect the WiFi on the device.

probably about 2k feet

your house is 600m long? Impressive 🙂

Google mesh here - works great (lots of concrete will defeat any wifi system) - our electrics are on two different consumer units so powerline adapters didn't work everywhere.

I live in an extended Victorian Semi over 3 floors struggled for years with the Virgin Hub 3 as already stated repeaters are useless with it. Had some joy with TP-link powerline adapter but it still struggled due to its location in the house it was taking a lot of the load.

Recently switched to a TP-link Mesh network and its night and day, 5 bars on Wi-fi virtually everywhere about 70-80 MBs from Virgin 100mbs broadband. Was £130 on Amazon best money I've spent in ages. Not had to touch the router in 2-3 weeks rather than having to re-boot it almost daily.

BT Mesh with two discs covering the whole house and side/back gardens (garage and summer house coverage).

tried repeaters etc in mine. all rubbish.

bought a bt 3 disk mesh for about 120 quid off facebook. I wish i had done it years ago. It just works as it should. The only issue is sonos where by you have to have one speaker plugged in. apart from that its flawless.

The only issue is sonos where by you have to have one speaker plugged in. apart from that its flawless.

?? why's that?

No issues with sonos and Google Mesh - works as it should.

i dont know. aparently its a common thing. (its ok if the speakers are in range of each other or one disk but has issues over multiple disks.

just repeater boosters which boost the wireless signal sound not ideal.

Why not? They seem to work for us and cheap as chips to try. Our house is large by most standards and coverage upstairs was pretty poor in some bedrooms. A simple repeater (TP-link extender) on the landing solved that issue.

Was thinking of a TP link mesh system, just built a log cabin, mibbe 10m from the house, anyone any idea if mesh will cover it?.

I need to run power to it, so could run a cat5 cable alongside anyway?.

Was thinking of a TP link mesh system, just built a log cabin, mibbe 10m from the house, anyone any idea if mesh will cover it?.
I need to run power to it, so could run a cat5 cable alongside anyway?.

Coverage is hard to say without seeing it. With good placement and no objects in the way I would say it should.

Cat5 does not do well alongside power cables. Separate them or get appropriate shielding.

so if i’m on repeaters through cable will they each be seperate acces points so i’d need to cahnge if i move to the bedroom for example?

You set the wifi name to be the same from each repeater/ access point (and ideally choose bands that don't overlap), and your device will automatically switch if it loses signal from the wifi network to which it's connected. It's not as active as a mesh network (which AFAIK actively kicks your device onto the nearest access point's network), but it works pretty well on the whole.

Cat5 does not do well alongside power cables. Separate them or get appropriate shielding.

Aye, I had considered that, wasn't sure though. Think I'll give the mesh system a go.

Cabin in the garden as per above, about 10/15metres away. Google mesh x2, one where the Internet comes in, the other on other side of house nearest cabin. Reaches the cabin fine. Set up and features of mesh are so good, not sure why it's taken so long to make this process so easy.

Go mesh. We have the Netgear Orbi system and it is awesome. They do outdoor units so you could easily extend it to an office in the garden.

I moved from Powerline Ethernet when driving wired devices e.g. DVR and Smart TV. Moved to Tenda Nova MW6-2 a couple of weeks ago to drive phones, Fire stick etc as NowTV router is rubbish on Wifi. Absolutely amazing - really strong signal throughout the house. Highly recommended for £87.99 when I bought it (price seems to have gone up since).