Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 113 total)
  • Mesh WiFi talk to me
  • el_boufador
    Full Member

    Well with everyone back at home the home network is feeling the strain. On virgin, whose bandwidth is ok but routers /WiFi are known to be a bit shit.

    I’m using power lines for a few connections due to the house size (tall Victorian town house, thick walls) powelines have never worked brilliantly due to having to traverse 2 consumer units.

    So looking to replace all the power lines, hopefully stable mesh WiFi for everything.

    Any recommendations? Don’t know anything about this at all. Educate me! I don’t mind spending a few quid for future proofed gear.

    Murray
    Full Member

    Tenda Nova is what I’ve got – cheap, works, far better than powerline

    sharkbait
    Free Member

    Any recommendations? Don’t know anything about this at all

    Really?
    How about doing a search of the forum? This bloody topic literally comes up every other week!

    Put this into Google:
    site:singletrackworld.com/forum mesh wifi

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    oldtennisshoes
    Full Member

    There’ll be talk of backhaul but I’d just get one of the Tenda kits that your budget stretches to. I’d put the router in modem only mode and let the mesh kit deal with the dns and routering.

    mogrim
    Full Member

    Does come up a bit as a topic… and my standard reply: I’ve got the Google Nest Mesh setup, and very happy with it. It includes Google Home speakers if that’s of interest.

    cheddarchallenged
    Free Member

    Google Nest if you don’t mind them spying on you. Get the routers as mesh points though as the “point” tops out at 60 Mbps

    BT whole home if you don’t mind having to reset them now and again. Steer clear of the “premium” ones which are very flaky.

    The New Netgear Orbi (£329 for 3 x units) if you’ve got fast broadband.

    Amazon Eero if you want cheap simple set up and don’t have a super fast connection

    superfli
    Free Member

    As mogrim. Can highly recommend the Google nest WiFi. Especially if you already have other Google smart devices

    pondo
    Full Member

    +1 for Tenda Nova – cheap, cheerful, not super-intuitive to set up but otherwise pretty bulletproof. 🙂

    fossy
    Full Member

    BT been good for us. One in the garage is backboned (cat5) on a powerline adapter, just in-case, as that’s my signal out to the shed where I’m working. Two others in house, one in son’s room as above router, other far side of lounge to cover garden/garage – shed way out of range.

    fossy
    Full Member

    Go for something above MESH just works.

    5lab
    Full Member

    f you’ve got fast broadband.

    you have to have rediculously fast broadband to max out even the cheapest of meshes (AC1200) which get to 150mbps.

    mogrim
    Full Member

    Amazon Eero if you want cheap simple set up and don’t have a super fast connection

    Not got good reviews, though. Not that I’ve tried it personally.

    oldtennisshoes
    Full Member

    you have to have rediculously fast broadband to max out even the cheapest of meshes (AC1200) which get to 150mbps.

    Virgin 350 here, and I use Tenda Nova MW6s without issue.
    Just don’t be tempted to add too many nodes. Each hop between nodes degrades the speed. You want to have as few as possible that provide full house coverage. Locate them carefully.

    Kuco
    Full Member

    I’ve got the BT ones and as cheddarchallenged says, I’ve had to reset them a couple of times but other than that they seem to work fine.

    robbo1234biking
    Full Member

    So as a technology Luddite (I didn’t used to be but other things became more important and this stuff overtook me) which tends nova would be best and would this solve the problem of devices struggling with connection speed when we have lots of wireless devices connected? Seems to be WiFi that is the issue as the stuff directly connected to the tiger don’t seem to struggle and broadband speed is 100mb.

    fazzini
    Full Member

    QQ not wanting to hijack the OPs thread, but are any mesh setups useful if the best speed you can get is 30mbps? We are on fibre to cabinet with no other options. Would cheer the kids up if it would improve things

    fossy
    Full Member

    Mesh will speed up the wifi devices further from the router.

    fazzini
    Full Member

    Thanks @fossy

    fossy
    Full Member

    It won’t go faster than your connection, but 30 mbps isn’t too bad. MESH will give you faster WIFI connection for the devices in bedrooms etc – the ‘devices’ can really drop the further away. You sort of daisy chain them. Put a disc in between a poor area to relay the signal. Pop the disc where there is good signal, then another a bit further away. It works well, and you’ve no ‘switching’ to do when moving about the house like using older wifi extenders.

    jim25
    Full Member

    I’d put the router in modem only mode and let the mesh kit deal with the dns and routering

    what does this mean and how do you do it?
    I’m on virgin with 3 tenda mw3 units in the house, but they won’t reach to my shed 30m away at bottom of garden

    Alphabet
    Full Member

    I have the BT system with 3 discs in the house and one in an outbuilding/office via Cat5 as the outbuilding is too far away. I’ve had to reset it a couple of times in last 12 months but apart from that it’s been great.

    Cougar
    Full Member

    I’ve got the top of the range Tenda Nova, MW12. It’s toss and I’m this > < far from trying to send it back.

    There was a long thread a couple of weeks back.

    dc1988
    Full Member

    Somebody recommended the BT whole home mini a few weeks back, I was just using a plug in range extender previously. The BT setup is much better, I was having lots of issues before and couldn’t get signal at the far end of my house, now I can get it at the far end of my garden. It was easy to set up and no issues so far…

    5lab
    Full Member

    The bt shop often has refurb deals on their home wifi setup. I got a 3 pack of the non mini ones for £90.

    The other advantage is no faffing with modem mode, it just delegates all nating to the router

    FunkyDunc
    Free Member

    I’d put the router in modem only mode and let the mesh kit deal with the dns and routering.

    Intrigued on this too. I’ve been on TP Link for about 6 months now and it’s transformed wifi in the home.

    I’ve got a sky router and sky Q. I tried running the sky Q off the tp link network and it crashed instantly, so have that now running off the sky router and everything else in the house off the tp link

    b230ftw
    Free Member

    Really?
    How about doing a search of the forum? This bloody topic literally comes up every other week!

    Instead of people berating an OP for not using a search function which a lot of people don’t know about why not send an email to STW each time insisting put in a working search function on the site instead? It really is an embarrassment for STW.

    twistedpencil
    Full Member

    @Cougar what’s the issue with the Tenda Nova MW12? I was looking at this as an option, but I’m on Virgin as well, if it doesn’t play nicely I may have to look at something else.

    jimdubleyou
    Full Member

    I have the Orbi RBR50 setup.

    If you have to use Pulse VPN for work you’ll be plugging in as it doesn’t play nice for some reason I haven’t got to the bottom of yet.

    Otherwise it’s pretty good. Base is in cupboard under stairs, satellite 1 in back bedroom so it can bridge to the one in the garage 15-20 metres away. Even daisy chained like that, can run Zwift and streaming music in the garage no worries.

    timmys
    Full Member

    In the general spirit of recommending what you own, I have been been incredibly impressed with my Plume mesh.

    https://www.plume.com/gb/homepass/

    tomtomthepipersson
    Full Member

    Tenda ones here (a mix of MW5 and MW6). Seem pretty stable, just a couple of reboots needed over the last 12 months. And they cope well with 4 people working/schooling from home every day.

    I have 4 in the house and one in a detached garage for Zwift duties – which also has a security camera wired to the Ethernet port.

    pedlad
    Full Member

    Did three months with 3x tenda mesh but regular intermittent problems where one unit was dropping off. Returned and got a last gen Orbi net gear one. V pleased so far with coverage and stability.

    robowns
    Free Member

    I’ve got a TP Link one with one node, it’s average, struggles to reach from the front of the house to the back – all on the same floor – even though the square footage quoted is significantly bigger. Just end up using the power line most of the time (Virgin 350 net).

    el_boufador
    Full Member

    Thanks all and apologies I know it comes up a lot! I did do the Google search thing but all the threads were pretty old.

    There is a lot of price difference between the various options. What are the more expensive ones getting you?

    I quite like the look of the Google one, seeing as most of our media is via Chromecast etc. But it’s a lot more spendy and the requirement really is WiFi reliability rather than any more smart home stuff.

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    The really expensive ones will have a really fast, dedicated back haul channel between the nodes for better hand-off between them.

    superfli
    Free Member

    I just did a test with my Google nest. 3 bed 1970s semi with a garage and utility room extension on side. Furthest point from Virgin superhub 3 is in utility room. With just Virgin hub, I couldn’t get much of a signal in utility. With nest and no access point, 30mb/s. With 1 access point, 50mb/s. That’s 200mb Virgin BB.
    Edit, must be more than 200mb as I’m 215 next to router

    mogrim
    Full Member

    I quite like the look of the Google one, seeing as most of our media is via Chromecast etc. But it’s a lot more spendy and the requirement really is WiFi reliability rather than any more smart home stuff.

    I really can recommend it though – it’s pretty much idiot-proof to set up, and you get another one or two Google Home speakers for the price. If you’re already selling your soul to Google it’s worth it.
    Is it better/worse than other mesh systems? No idea. But I can tell you I’ve got two teenage daughters and a netflix-addicted wife, and it’s been faultless. So much better than before when dropouts were a daily problem.

    Cougar
    Full Member

    Cougar what’s the issue with the Tenda Nova MW12?

    Sorry, I’ll reply to this when I get chance. It’s not a short post and I’m having a bit of a day.

    thelordhumungous
    Free Member

    Google mesh all day. 2x WFH here, constant video calls, plus netflex, Ps4 etc etc. Extended to cabin at the bottom of the garden via a hard cable and another dot at the end. Sets itself up, and the app where you can prioritise devices and check who’s signed in is useful. We did initially switch off the sky box wifi signal as mentioned above, but after a recent powercut/reset its back on and both work alongside each other fine, just tell your devices to use the mesh signal.

    thelordhumungous
    Free Member

    Also I can walk between dots and it doesn’t drop video calls/signal

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 113 total)

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