[Closed] Home LAN Wi-Fi upgrade - WWSTWD?

I have Ubiquiti Unifi stuff at home, it's a good compromise between consumer rubbish and expensive enterprise stuff. A single UAP-AC-LR was actually enough to cover the house, but if you need more access points you just add them and stuff properly roams and hands off between them. PoE and they're discreet enough to just mount on the ceiling or on top of cupboards. Software can be run on a PC, only needs to be running if changes are made. Can do multiple SSIDs including timed ones if you wanted kids' devices to be off the internet after a certain time.

I would go full mesh. No point having a router that can reach space it the device at the other end (mobile phone for example) has an antenna that would struggle to reach the edge of the room.

I have no experience of it, but keep glancing over at mesh systems. My latest 'discovery' is mesh systems with powerline backbones. Not a cheap option but shirely better than the mesh signal tailing off, the further it get from the hub unit?

Couple of the system that use it:
https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/deco/deco-p9/
https://www.devolo.co.uk/magic-2-wifi-next

We have the BT Whole home discs, Three in a large stone house with too many screens running all the time, they are great. Added bonus you can turn off petulant teenage devices till they've done their chores!

Been doing some home network stuff myself lately so have been doing a bit of research, now know slightly more than nothing although it's a pretty broad subject!

I've gone for the Unifi stuff. Fairly spendy, but not HUGELY more than no-brand switches, etc. One reason for going for it is that it then made it fairly cheap/simple to hardwire an outbuilding via a fibre cable. If you literally just want decent WiFi then probably any mesh system would do the job (although the Unifi stuff not much more money really than a crappier consumer grade solution).

The really cool thing about Unifi is it offers a single admin page where you can see everything on/about your system at once which makes administering everything a joy compared to clicking through pages of badly laid out menus like as with most ISP supplied routers. You either need to run this software yourself, or mine came with a free 3-year cloud hosted package. I probably will move it all over to my own server at some stage, the big advantage of the cloud option was that the company I bought it from set everything up for me before sending it out, I literally just had to plug it in at home and everything worked straight away with zero config required from me! Plus the Access Points look like flying saucers 👽 oh and I don't know whether this is common or not but the APs need to be hardwired but use PoE so don't tie up a plug socket!

t’interwebs installed courtesy of Virgin

My condolences.

But yes, mesh is worth it IMHO. I thought my previous set up was good enough (multiple access points connected by powerlines), but going to a decent mesh system has made everything just a little bit better. A little bit better on something as crucial as decent wifi is a significant thing. I thought we had a few devices but when I look at my mesh app I can see currently there are 26 devices connected (and it has seen 39 in the last 30 days) - most peoples wifi is probably working a lot harder than they realise!

For what it's worth my mesh is from Plume and I think it's bloody lovely.

Virgin wi fi routers are terrible. I swapped mine into modem mode and connect a Netgear Orbi system to it. It is superb if a litle bit pricey. My mac is now connected via an ethernet cable into an Orbi satellite. As a result I get near 400mbps internet.

Cheers all.

I don't have children and that's highly unlikely to change so that's not an issue. No outbuildings to worry about. I want intelligent 2.4/5GHz switching rather then separate SSIDs and don't want to faff about changing between 'local' APs (which is what pointed me to mesh in the first place). I think I'd rather go over-specced than invest in something that I'll have to fully replace in a couple of years' time. I don't really want to be running cables if I can help it, so an initial cabled access point or replacement router is going to be in a corner of the room farthest away from the rest of the house.

There are many computers / phones / tablets here plus I have Alexa and Hue devices so that's only ever going to increase. Being able to VLAN off the IoT stuff might be a nice-to-have (side question: do they require access to anything other than themselves and the Internet or will this break things like Spotify? Probably a question for a separate thread) and the Virgin has a guest Wi-Fi option which I'd quite like to keep but isn't a deal-breaker (I suppose this is broadly the same requirement).

I'd go with a decent mesh system and the router in modem only mode. Be wary of powerline networking - you're probably OK with Virgin but it often causes interference on VDSL (ie Openreach fibre to the cabinet).

Is wi-fi latency better than it used to be for fast online gaming compared to cables, or is that not a factor because fast paced games such as Rocket League aren't played?

WWSTWD?

I'd ask Cougar. How our heroes fall...

I don't think latency is going to be an issue. Up in my office I'm seeing Internet speeds at around 100Mbps - ie, half of the supplied speed - but ping times of around 9ms and that's via the Virgin router ("Super Hub 3").

I’d ask Cougar. How our heroes fall…

🤣

Technology moves on, I've had no reason to deal with this stuff before so it's all new to me.

I don’t have children

I do.....and thanks to my el-cheapo mesh system they can all quite happily stream and game simultaneously without moaning the arse off me about the state of the wi-fi every two minutes.

It never used to be like that. Get meshed up.

Technology moves on, I’ve had no reason to deal with this stuff before so it’s all new to me.

It's like I don't even know you anymore...

I've just been through similar - long narrow house with (Virgin) router at one end and my main work room at the other.
I tried a Tenda Mesh system, but speed drops with the additional hops and I needed a couple of hops to get to the work room.
Powerline wasn't great due to the heath robinson approach to electrics in 1980s extensions.
I still have Tenda Mesh in most of the house, but I ran a cable outside and back in the house for the work room. The XBox, PS4 and TV (in the work room by day, teenage hovel by night) are hard wired and I run another Tenda unit with a different SSD and on different channels to provide wifi.

tldr: Mesh is great but has limits if you need multiple hops. Don't be afraid to break out the SDS Drill and punch down tool to throw a cable at the problem.

Same as oldtennisshoes for me. I could never get it good enough so a weekend of swearing/floor board lifting and poking down holes with a coat hanger saw the whole house etherneted and joyous abandon thenceforth.

Painey nails it.

Virgin box in modem mode. Cable to a separate router - put in middle of property for best location and experiment with that - then mesh, etc if you need it

Another vote for mesh access points connected by ethernet if your house is problematical (brick walls, long or L-shaped, extensions the other side of external walls etc.)

Another vote for an Orbi system - we also have Virgin and since moving all the devices to the new network, it has been a dream. The only hassle was my son trying to switch off the network because his PC was not working! We got teh expensive one (two sons at home both steaming, plus two of us doing Zoom calls) but my brother has just bought the slighter cheaper version for a router and two satellites for about £120. He said it was easy to set up and worked like a dream.

I'm seeing routers now that have mesh support, ASUS in particular. Is that actually going to gain me anything over just a dedicated mesh node or two?

I got Google Mesh sometime around the start of lockdown, and I'm very happy with it. The modules are also speakers so you can play Spotify etc over them. According to reviews its ease of use is also potentially a weak point as it's less user-configurable, but I really CBA to waste time configuring routers, and in my case it's worked fine out of the box.

If you've already got Amazon/Alexa spying on you, perhaps the new Amazon mesh (eero) would be worth a look?

You have to buy one fewer mesh access points if your routers wifi is mesh. No point in getting a mesh capable wifi router unless you might want to extend your wireless network with more APs.

Have you used the Virgin Connect App to tune your wifi in the remote rooms? Worth trying before you go down the mesh/new router route.

If you’ve already got Amazon/Alexa spying on you, perhaps the new Amazon mesh (eero) would be worth a look?

Ooh, I'd forgotten about those!

That's spendy though, and the non-Pro version isn't shipping until February. Mixed reviews too, not quite ready for the UK market it seems.

Have you used the Virgin Connect App to tune your wifi in the remote rooms?

I was not aware that such a thing existed. I'll have a look, ta.

There's some info about it in the help section of the App - "Get more from your Wifi". Virgin Tech support told me about it when I was having similar issues.

Reviews on the Play store do not instil confidence...!

That’s spendy though, and the non-Pro version isn’t shipping until February. Mixed reviews too, not quite ready for the UK market it seems.

I've not used it, as I said I've got Google Mesh and it works well - I assumed (perhaps incorrectly!) that Amazon would be similar.

Yeah, tempting though it is I'm not sure that I need Amazon and Google home assistants. (-:

Based on what I remember from previous threads, I think I'm going to pull the trigger on the Tenda units. £120 for three MW6 units is tough to beat. There's the tri-band MW12 units but they're double the price.

Apparently they "work with Alexa" too, whatever that's supposed to do I've no idea. One way to find out I guess.

I have just installed 3 x TP-Link Deco M4’s, sub £100 from the local Curry’s and it’s made a massive difference in sorting the areas that had lower signal and no get consistent download and upload speeds everywhere, haven’t needed power link backhaul and it was up and running in minutes, and auto switches between 2.4 and 5 too.

Oh, bugger it.

3x Tenda MW12s bought. The dedicated backhaul swung it for me and I'm not seeing many other tri-band offerings in that price bracket.

I'd have just bribed next door's son for the password.

I've got 2x Tenda Nova MW3 units. Thick stone walled house, upstairs the wifi signal was spotty at best (BT home hub).
Installed the Tenda, which was nice and simple and everything is rosy.

2 of us WFH over VPN and it's been pretty good - today I had to reboot it as it lost internet connectivity. Think I've had to do that maybe twice in the year I've had it.
No complaints at all from me.

Si

I’d have just bribed next door’s son for the password.

If I wanted access to his Wi-Fi that badly I'd have just taken it. (-:

Another vote for mesh access points connected by ethernet if your house is problematical (brick walls, long or L-shaped, extensions the other side of external walls etc.)

This. I've done two properties with cabled backhaul because of 1m thick walls in one and long/narrow layout for the other.

IME, BT WholeHome is OK when on a cable backhaul. It was pish without it (IME).

My preferred fancypants solution these days is TP-Link Omada EAP-225/EAP-245/Controller. It's a TP-Link version of Unifi at TP-Link prices and with fewer hinky POE hurdles. Not one you can just take out of a box and expect a setup wizard to sort for you though.

This is all slightly over my head but I think I have the same problem. Do you just plug one of these tenda units into your router and then position the other two units on different floors and you magically have good WiFi throughout the house - sorry for the hijack but I have a household of unhappy people! Do I need to configure anything and have a degree of competence in networking...

Ahh, late to the party. One of the challenges of these home mesh systems is that most of them cannot have the channel changed. So if you’ve got signal bleed in from a neighbour or have sky q, then you can have some tuning problems. Let me know how you get on, I’ve been put off mesh for this reason and have a Meraki on “home test”, but it will need to go back and earn its keep for real soon

Oh, bugger it.

3x Tenda MW12s bought. The dedicated backhaul swung it for me and I’m not seeing many other tri-band offerings in that price bracket.

Good call - definitely the best place to start!

Another vote for Google mesh/nest/whatever they call it. I had years of messing with 2nd routers, powerline adaptors, you name it I tried it. Bought the Goog and everything has been rosie since they were powered up.

Can anyone with any of these google or tenda systems let me know if you can select channels? I don’t fancy spending a bolt load of dosh to replace this enterprise grade AP when a mesh on the surface would be better if I can shape it around sky’s fixed channels

I'll let you know in a day or two.

If Gamer Boi next door is conflicting channels then I have... means of encouraging him to address his sudden inexplicable networking issues. (-:

Cheers Cougar

Dedicated backhaul makes a huge difference in performance, so good choice. Happy Netgear Orbi 6 user here.

I've a Meraki test network, but the mesh interworking doesn't really work anywhere near as good as they don't use a dedicated backhaul, it's half duplex over the mesh.