Modern home WiFi

[flyingcheesehead]

Hi all,

Having set up a new home office for the duration of this crisis, I'm finding that my home WiFi, currently operating through a single base station that's around 10 years old, isn't really adequate at the far corner of the house where I'm set up.

I know that things have changed a lot and there are newer setups that use something that at least resembles mesh networking with multiple "base" stations. What's the state of the WiFi art right now? Who's got the best value equipment, without snooping on my data? What's a good resource to learn how things have changed?

Thanks!

 

[GeorgeC]

I've been meaning to do the same. Probably will go ubiquiti.

 

[Larry in TN]

What you are calling 'base stations' are wireless access points or WAPs. Many consumer routers have a built-in WAP. You can add additional WAPs anywhere that you have access Ethernet access. Ethernet is wired internet using Cat 5, or greater, cables and, often, RJ45 plugs/jacks. WAPs are made by numerous manufacturers and start under $100. One good, centrally located WAP may be able to do the job when a single, consumer wifi router can. If it can't, you can have multiple WAPs on the same network. I have a single TP-LINK WAP in a centrally located 2nd floor closet which covers my entire ~2400 sqft house and my 1/4 acre yard.

You can also setup a mesh wifi network where multiple mesh device repeat and extend the wifi footprint. I don't have any direct experinces with mesh networks.

 

[kjwalker01]

Just bought a Netgear Orbi mesh system that was pretty easy to install and seems to work really well. Paid $300 at Costco (just before the COVID run-on toilet paper), an it consists of a router and 2 satellites. The nice thing with the satellites is that they have 3 network ports to connect non-wifi devices. I've been really happy with it so far.

 

[asicer]

Can't pull cat6 for gigabit Ethernet?

 

[Justin M]

Don't go with ubiquity. Although they are easy to use, they have crappy antennas. Instead, go with Ruckus. The Ruckus R720 series is awesome. The great advantage of the Ruckus R720 is that they can handle a large number of devices, besides having great throughput. Ubiquity handles a few devices ok, but starts to fail with 8 or more devices.

 

[Dana]

I had great results with Ubiquiti hardware for a summer camp wifi setup with 30-50 users (though I wish the Hughes satellite setup feeding it was half as good). But Ubiquiti stuff is probably overkill for most home users. RIght now at home I'm using an inexpensive Zoom combo cable modem / router / WAP that's a few years old and it's more than adequate... last week I was remote desktoping to my office or doing video chat and transferring large CAD files while my wife was watching netflix in the other room. Not sure about range but it covers the entire house and reaches to the garage.

 

[FORANE]

Don't go with ubiquity. Although they are easy to use, they have crappy antennas. Instead, go with Ruckus. The Ruckus R720 series is awesome. The great advantage of the Ruckus R720 is that they can handle a large number of devices, besides having great throughput. Ubiquity handles a few devices ok, but starts to fail with 8 or more devices.

Dang, that Ruckus is pricey.

I have used a number of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Unifi-Ap-AC-Long-Range/dp/B015PRCBBI/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1
They have performed very well for me.

 

[Bill]

Although NLA , I’ve been running two Apple airport extremes for about five years now. One as the master WiFi and one as an extender. Works so well truly set and forget. I have to reboot the space one r in a great while, the master unit has run flawlessly for the duration. The extender lets me get WiFi I’m the garage and behind in the driveway.

I’m sure newer stuff is even better.

 

[NoHeat]

Mesh wifi.

My main router is in the basement, and I've got a satellite in each level of the house.

Reviews:

https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-mesh-networking-kits/
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-mesh-router,review-5191.html​

Mine is the Linksys Velop. I'd try a different model, if I bought again, because sometimes my signal is weak, which is generally fixed by rebooting the satellites and the main router, by unplugging them.

 

[benyflyguy]

I bought a google mesh with three “pods”. We had a single base. With kids streaming on video games our cpu would dog it with small stuff. Frustrating. Would drop all the time.
Since we installed this mesh thing it has been a dream.

 

[kgruber]

My 8-year-old ASUS just needs to be re-booted every month.

 

[jbarrass]

Another vote for Orbi. Fast, works well, and easy to set up too.

 

[deonb]

Strong vote for Ubiquiti Unifi. It's definitely the best tech decision I've made in 20 years.

I have 83 wired and 28 wireless devices connected at home over Unifi. 3 WiFi access points spread over the property. Running a 1GB Frontier Fiber ISP with failover to a XFINITY Cable - the failover is so fast it doesn't even interrupt Netflix. My NAS, security system and inter-switch links are now running across 10Gbps OM3 fiber. Their system is incredibly flexible and extensible and EASY.

Do NOT go with EDGE as a home user under any circumstances. I started with that first - big mistake. Go with Unifi.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I've been meaning to do the same. Probably will go ubiquiti.

I've used the Ubuquiti stuff at work, but it seems like overkill and pricey at first glance. However, they have about a billion products so maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. Which products are you looking at?

What you are calling 'base stations' are wireless access points or WAPs. Many consumer routers have a built-in WAP. You can add additional WAPs anywhere that you have access Ethernet access. Ethernet is wired internet using Cat 5, or greater, cables and, often, RJ45 plugs/jacks. WAPs are made by numerous manufacturers and start under $100. One good, centrally located WAP may be able to do the job when a single, consumer wifi router can. If it can't, you can have multiple WAPs on the same network. I have a single TP-LINK WAP in a centrally located 2nd floor closet which covers my entire ~2400 sqft house and my 1/4 acre yard.

You can also setup a mesh wifi network where multiple mesh device repeat and extend the wifi footprint. I don't have any direct experinces with mesh networks.

Yep, that's exactly where I'm at. But last I really did anything with this, the mesh networks weren't even a thing.

Can't pull cat6 for gigabit Ethernet?

Could. Don't want to. I used to do that when I had my business, and I even did some recently when we set up our new airport office building. Maybe eventually I'll set up a nice rack in the basement and do some cool stuff, but for now I'm looking for something relatively quick and easy, and pulling wire (without the walls open) ain't it.

Don't go with ubiquity. Although they are easy to use, they have crappy antennas. Instead, go with Ruckus. The Ruckus R720 series is awesome. The great advantage of the Ruckus R720 is that they can handle a large number of devices, besides having great throughput. Ubiquity handles a few devices ok, but starts to fail with 8 or more devices.

Which Ubiquiti products are you speaking of? We use them at work with plenty of devices and have no problems at all.

And if I buy a $450 WAP, I will no longer need a $450 WAP because my wife will kick me out of the house.

Although NLA , I’ve been running two Apple airport extremes for about five years now. One as the master WiFi and one as an extender. Works so well truly set and forget. I have to reboot the space one r in a great while, the master unit has run flawlessly for the duration. The extender lets me get WiFi I’m the garage and behind in the driveway.

I’m sure newer stuff is even better.

Yeah, I'm running a single Time Capsule. Compared to other devices of its era, it's fantastic. But, they quit making WiFi stuff quite a while ago now, so I'm looking for something more current.

Strong vote for Ubiquiti Unifi. It's definitely the best tech decision I've made in 20 years.

I have 83 wired and 28 wireless devices connected at home over Unifi. 3 WiFi access points spread over the property. Running a 1GB Frontier Fiber ISP with failover to a XFINITY Cable - the failover is so fast it doesn't even interrupt Netflix. My NAS, security system and inter-switch links are now running across 10Gbps OM3 fiber. Their system is incredibly flexible and extensible and EASY.

Holy crap! 83 wired devices?!?

Which UniFi products are you using?

 

[weilke]

My house was built by a (female) geek and I have 5e to every room. Each floor has a Ubiquity AP Pro fed by a PoE switch. I can keep drinks warm with the available wifi energy and the APs have been trouble free. Set&forget.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Mesh wifi.

My main router is in the basement, and I've got a satellite in each level of the house.

Reviews:

https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-mesh-networking-kits/
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-mesh-router,review-5191.html​

Mine is the Linksys Velop. I'd try a different model, if I bought again, because sometimes my signal is weak, which is generally fixed by rebooting the satellites and the main router, by unplugging them.

Well... There isn't a whole lot of consensus there! Tom's Guide chose the Google system, while The Wire Cutter tested that last year and it was so bad they didn't even include it in this year's tests! And the one that The Wire Cutter chose as their top pick was #8 of 10 at Tom's.

 

[deonb]

Holy crap! 83 wired devices?!?

Yeah, I have 20 POE security cameras, 24 Christmas Light controllers, 12 Sonos Speakers, 5 Apple TV's. That's 61 wired devices right there. The rest are one-off PCs, Servers, NAS's, TV's, LTO Tape Library etc.

Which UniFi products are you using?

My UniFi setup is:

1. UniFi Security Gateway 4P
2. UniFi Cloud Key 2
3. UniFi Switch 16XG (10 gbit Fiber Optic switch)
4. UniFi Switch 48 port POE
5. UniFi Switch Gen2 Pro 24 port POE
6. UniFi Switch Gen2 Pro 48 port POE
   
7. 2 x UniFi Switch 8 Port POE
8. UniFi AP-AC Mesh Pro Wireless Access Point
9. 2 x UniFi AP-HP Wireless Access Points

The first two items are a bit obsolete now, the Dream Machine Pro takes over the role of both. I'll maybe upgrade later.

The UniFi Security Gateway connects to the 2 ISPs, and then to the main 16XG 10 gbps switch. That switch in turn connects to each of the other 6 UniFi switches using 10Gtek SFP+ LC Transceivers over OM3 MMF fiber. It also directly connects to my security camera servers (running Blue Iris), main desktop computer, LTO-8 Tape Drive controller, and a couple of Synology NAS's. Those devices can all talk 10 gbps with each other over fiber. Everything else run standard 1 gbps Ethernet over copper.

You can actually run 10 gbps over CAT6A/CAT7 instead on the exact same hardware as above if you use 10GBase-T SFP+ copper RJ45 transceivers. I went with Fiber instead since it works out cheaper than copper on a new install, and it can run much further.

I can't describe how easy the above setup is to manage, even though it seems advanced. I spent more time fiddling with my previous stupid 2 Asus access points to try and get them to not interfere with each other and steal devices, then I have installing my entire UniFi setup. Just the fact that there is just one single place to manage everything makes a HUGE difference.

A new UniFi Access Point install is basically:

• Plug it into an Ethernet port (no power plug needed)
• Click on "Adopt" on their app

There is NO setup beyond that - all the provisioning happens for you.

 

[deonb]

Having said that (preceding post to this one), there are some limits I ran into with UniFi but they'll be unusual and inapplicable for most people at home:

1) I also have a Fiber Channel SAN that runs between a couple of PC's and an LTO-8 Tape Drive. On more advanced networking equipment you can bridge Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) directly, and then run your Fiber Channel traffic next to your Fiber Ethernet traffic over the same set of optical fibers and switches. UniFi can't do this. However, equipment that CAN do this - like Brocade - is 10 times the price of UniFi.

So I instead just keep my Fiber Channel stuff on a separate HPE switch and I run it on different physical fibers next to the Ethernet fibers. Thankfully when my installer originally ran my fibers, he used a roll of OM3 cable that had 6 strands of fiber (3 pairs), so all my outlets in the house now have 3x LC-LC pairs. So top pair is now Ethernet, middle pair is Fiber Channel. C'est la vie.

2) Since Frontier gives you a fiber line to the home, and the UniFi Gateway takes an SFP+ module, you should just be able to run the physical Frontier fiber right up to the UniFi gateway, then use a SFP GPON ONT, plug the fiber into the SFP module, and plug it into the UniFi gateway. In theory. What happens in practice though is that Frontier runs their fiber to an outside Frontier ONT box, and from there they run CAT6 into your UniFi Gateway. I know FS sells compatible GPON ONT SFP modules. However, trying to ask anybody in Frontier about provision a SFP based GPON ONT is like trying to explain astrophysics to a goldfish. I just gave up.

XFinity Gigabit Pro on the other hand drops fiber into your house (850nm MMF - identical to the stuff I run in my post above), and you connect it via a SFP+ transceiver directly to the UniFi Gateway. Fully sanctioned by XFinity. But XFinity sales refuses to acknowledge the existence of XFinity Gigabit Pro, even though it's still on their site and they literally came to my door and advertised it.

So even though the UniFi Security Gateway allows for 2 direct SFP+ fiber-based ISP connections, I know of no ISP that actually can provide direct fiber. I think UniFi also gave up on it since the new Dream Machine Pro only has 1x SFP+ WAN connector instead of 2 like the old USG. Their solution for a failover ISP is now via RJ45 only.

UniFi also now has their own LTE-based failover device that they sell, which is just a POE device that you plug into any UniFi switch on your network, and that they then tunnel back to the USG or Dream Machine Pro for security. So maybe UniFi does not think a wired ISP failover is that important anymore.

3) Their ISP failover works great for inbound failover. It does NOT work great for outbound failover. I would expect if there is a ISP failover, that they will automatically re-register DDNS records with the failed over public IP address - it doesn't do that. Having said that, that's only really useful if your primary ISP goes down for days at a time rather than just a few hours. Otherwise by the time you have DNS propagation of your secondary, it already switched back to the primary.

 

[Bill]

Yeah, I'm running a single Time Capsule. Compared to other devices of its era, it's fantastic. But, they quit making WiFi stuff quite a while ago now, so I'm looking for something more current.

When Apple announced the end of their WIFI stuff, I bought a 3rd Extreme for the spare parts closet. If either of the ones I have now dies, I can swap it out and delay having to change entirely. Yeah, they're that stable.

 

[Gary]

Having said that (preceding post to this one), there are some limits I ran into with UniFi but they'll be unusual and inapplicable for most people at home:

1) I also have a Fiber Channel SAN that runs between a couple of PC's and an LTO-8 Tape Drive. On more advanced networking equipment you can bridge Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) directly, and then run your Fiber Channel traffic next to your Fiber Ethernet traffic over the same set of optical fibers and switches. UniFi can't do this. However, equipment that CAN do this - like Brocade - is 10 times the price of UniFi.

So I instead just keep my Fiber Channel stuff on a separate HPE switch and I run it on different physical fibers next to the Ethernet fibers. Thankfully when my installer originally ran my fibers, he used a roll of OM3 cable that had 6 strands of fiber (3 pairs), so all my outlets in the house now have 3x LC-LC pairs. So top pair is now Ethernet, middle pair is Fiber Channel. C'est la vie.

2) Since Frontier gives you a fiber line to the home, and the UniFi Gateway takes an SFP+ module, you should just be able to run the physical Frontier fiber right up to the UniFi gateway, then use a SFP GPON ONT, plug the fiber into the SFP module, and plug it into the UniFi gateway. In theory. What happens in practice though is that Frontier runs their fiber to an outside Frontier ONT box, and from there they run CAT6 into your UniFi Gateway. I know FS sells compatible GPON ONT SFP modules. However, trying to ask anybody in Frontier about provision a SFP based GPON ONT is like trying to explain astrophysics to a goldfish. I just gave up.

XFinity Gigabit Pro on the other hand drops fiber into your house (850nm MMF - identical to the stuff I run in my post above), and you connect it via a SFP+ transceiver directly to the UniFi Gateway. Fully sanctioned by XFinity. But XFinity sales refuses to acknowledge the existence of XFinity Gigabit Pro, even though it's still on their site and they literally came to my door and advertised it.

So even though the UniFi Security Gateway allows for 2 direct SFP+ fiber-based ISP connections, I know of no ISP that actually can provide direct fiber. I think UniFi also gave up on it since the new Dream Machine Pro only has 1x SFP+ WAN connector instead of 2 like the old USG. Their solution for a failover ISP is now via RJ45 only.

UniFi also now has their own LTE-based failover device that they sell, which is just a POE device that you plug into any UniFi switch on your network, and that they then tunnel back to the USG or Dream Machine Pro for security. So maybe UniFi does not think a wired ISP failover is that important anymore.

3) Their ISP failover works great for inbound failover. It does NOT work great for outbound failover. I would expect if there is a ISP failover, that they will automatically re-register DDNS records with the failed over public IP address - it doesn't do that. Having said that, that's only really useful if your primary ISP goes down for days at a time rather than just a few hours. Otherwise by the time you have DNS propagation of your secondary, it already switched back to the primary.

I have absolutely no understanding of your post - but it sounds really cool!!

 

[cgrab]

A couple months ago, I put in an ASUS AC1300 and an extender in the garage. It allows me to have a 5g network for my wife and I and a 2g for visitors and a second 2g for the WYZE cameras outside (which is why I needed the extender). My wife is happy with it and that's all that matters.

 

[flyingron]

I started with the EERO mesh units and quicky **** canned them (actually, I gave them to the Habitat for Humanity resale store). Worst computer buy I I ever made. The things brick 45 seconds after your internet goes down even for local traffic. They can not be programmed except remotely by the cloud. Their customer support is dubious to say the least.

About that time Netgear came out with the ORBI units. They are a star rather than a mesh and can be programmed either with their app or you can just connect to them with a web-browser like every other traditional unit. They worked well in my testing. They also have three or four ports on each unit unlike the EEROs that have two. I'd recommend these units (I'll have to admit I paid nothing for them, they were given to me to evaluate on my 7700 SF house for coverage and throughput).

But I went with was six Ubiquiti hotspots (four internal mounted uniflys and two outdoors). These run back on cat 5 to an Ubiquiti switch and Edgerouter. This gives me strong coverage throughout my house and everywhere else on my two-acre lot. This is important as cell phone coverage is spotty to say the best and we use the wifi-cutover feature of our phones.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Wow @deonb, you're rocking some serious hardware!

Yeah, I have 20 POE security cameras, 24 Christmas Light controllers, 12 Sonos Speakers, 5 Apple TV's. That's 61 wired devices right there. The rest are one-off PCs, Servers, NAS's, TV's, LTO Tape Library etc.

Geek.

I have two consumer security cameras at home. I do have a few of the Ubiquiti PoE ones at work, though, and they're very nice. Also much more expensive... But worth it if you need them.

Part of my problem with Ubiquiti is they have SO many different products at different price levels that it's hard to figure out what I should get!

I like the Dream Machine - I don't need the Pro (at least not yet) but the Dream Machine is a good start. Do they have any mesh WAPs that work well with the Dream Machine?

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Does anyone have the Synology equipment (RT2600ac router and MR2200ac mesh extender)?

I do have a Synology NAS at work and it's a great product... Wondering what it's like for networking in a home environment and how it'd compare with a basic Ubiquiti setup.

 

[deonb]

Wow @deonb, you're rocking some serious hardware!

It all started when my wife was complaining that WiFi wasn't working on her phone in the bedroom . Combined with my motto in life: "If something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing."

Of course I'm very thankful for it right now, since it makes working from home a breeze.

I like the Dream Machine - I don't need the Pro (at least not yet) but the Dream Machine is a good start. Do they have any mesh WAPs that work well with the Dream Machine?

I don't like WiFi mesh at all. Why give up over 50%+ of your performance on a $300+ access point to avoid running a $20 cable? Even professionally installed, a cable install is $200 - still worth it.

They do indeed have UniFi Mesh AP's - both the AC Mesh, and AC Mesh Pro. I actually have a AC Mesh PRO. It's fine, but I just use it because it's a nice flat outdoor AP. It's still just runs over an Ethernet cable for me, not Mesh.

Keep in mind that neither the Dream Machine nor Dream Machine Pro has POE, so you need another switch to power your Access Points. And Mesh AP's need a Power Source as well.

If you do decide to heavily invest in mesh, keep in mind that Ubiquity has a dedicated mesh setup called AmpliFi: https://amplifi.com/

 

[cessna182b]

My 8-year-old ASUS just needs to be re-booted every month.

My trusty old Linksys unit was about ten years old. Never actually failed, but would lock up about once a week and need a reboot. Replaced it with a TP-Link router that has been trouble free - and covers my
smallish house with one acre yard very well. My only complaint is that it doesn't have many wired ports (just enough, actually- but no room for expansion).

Dave

 

[weilke]

Part of my problem with Ubiquiti is they have SO many different products at different price levels that it's hard to figure out what I should get!

For the WAPs they have different levels of performance and price. I went with the 'Pro' version at the time because it would run with a generic PoE switch. Their lower level offerings required a proprietary ubiquity switch or the use of a power injector on each line.

 

[Hang 4]

I went through multiple wifi routers over the course of the last 15 years. All of them would eventually require weekly or daily reboots, manual firmware upgrades and then google adventures to try and "fix" some defect. Got Google mesh about 2 years ago and haven't had to do anything since. I do have each "pod" wired to ethernet which required threading the cable through the house. Blazing fast, firmware updates in the background.

If you know what all the acronyms mean in through this thread, then get the latest and greatest, if you want wifi to just work, Google Mesh is a good choice.

 

[masloki]

Installed a Zyxel 1123 AC Pro and worked great except for a far flung Roku. Added a 1123-AC HD and haven’t thought about them since. Probably could run on the HD alone with its beam forming. You can manage locally or flip them over to cloud. Auto firmware installs have been seamless and at least give me the idea they are keeping the software secure. And half the price of Ubiquiti.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

It all started when my wife was complaining that WiFi wasn't working on her phone in the bedroom . Combined with my motto in life: "If something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing."

You know what... I want to see a YouTube Channel with you and @Ted DuPuis overdoing all the things worth doing.

I don't like WiFi mesh at all. Why give up over 50%+ of your performance on a $300+ access point to avoid running a $20 cable? Even professionally installed, a cable install is $200 - still worth it.

Because running the $20 cable is a skill that I have, so I'm not going to hire someone else to do it, but there is a period of time between deciding to run the $20 cable and finishing running the $20 cable where I forget the $800 worth of frustration involved, after which I realize I'd rather have the $300 half-ass WAP than that stupid *(%#&*%(*)@#ing $20 cable in my wall.

I used to own a business, and as it was a small business (maxed at 4 employees) I was very hands-on. One of the services we provided was running low-voltage cables as part of larger systems we were installing (some audio, mostly networking). We always quoted $2.50/foot for open walls and $4.50/foot for closed walls. And that was 20 years ago. I'm pretty sure we were undercharging.

Keep in mind that neither the Dream Machine nor Dream Machine Pro has POE, so you need another switch to power your Access Points.

Ah, bummer... Though I guess I could pretty easily use up the 4 ports on the Dream Machine for other things, and buy one of their switches for PoE cameras and WAPs.

If you do decide to heavily invest in mesh, keep in mind that Ubiquity has a dedicated mesh setup called AmpliFi: https://amplifi.com/

Yep. Kinda pricy though.

 

[Tom-D]

When we are on the road with the motorhome we use the cell phone as the WIFI with a unlimited connection. $$

 

[MonkeyClaw]

I switched to the Ubiquiti Dream Machine and a mesh point early this year and am beyond happy with it. I have been working for home for the better part of 10 years, so I depend on a quality connection which sometimes runs a large amount of throughput. I also don't want to spend a lot of time playing with or worrying about my network. Since getting the UDM, my internet connection has been rock solid and the mesh system allows me to get reliable connections all around my house. I can even set up mesh points outside so I can work outside in the yard. It also has really useful reporting built in, which is more than just pretty graphs. Looking at the monitoring and reporting, I was able to diagnose my friend's failing phone connection and saw that the issue was with his VPN and not his iPhone. I routinely have 20-30 clients connected and there haven't been any issues.

If you can't tell, I'm very happy with my network setup now

 

[bflynn]

The biggest problem I see with my home setup these days is that now EVERYONE has wifi. There are about a dozen or so SSIDs to connect to right now and I'm sure we're colliding on channels, meaning we're competing for frequency bandwidth. If everyone tries to watch a movie at once, it just doesn't work well. 10 years ago, not a problem.

Fiber is still 5 years off here.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

I switched to the Ubiquiti Dream Machine and a mesh point early this year and am beyond happy with it. I have been working for home for the better part of 10 years, so I depend on a quality connection which sometimes runs a large amount of throughput. I also don't want to spend a lot of time playing with or worrying about my network. Since getting the UDM, my internet connection has been rock solid and the mesh system allows me to get reliable connections all around my house. I can even set up mesh points outside so I can work outside in the yard. It also has really useful reporting built in, which is more than just pretty graphs. Looking at the monitoring and reporting, I was able to diagnose my friend's failing phone connection and saw that the issue was with his VPN and not his iPhone. I routinely have 20-30 clients connected and there haven't been any issues.

If you can't tell, I'm very happy with my network setup now

Awesome, @MonkeyClaw! That sounds very much like what I'm looking for.

Dream Machine, NOT the Dream Machine Pro, correct?

What specific mesh point did you use? Just one, or do you have multiple?

 

[Brad W]

ok, so in reader's digest layman's terms
how is this mesh / UniFi stuff different than a wifi router and hardwired access points?

My house was wired with cat5 to almost every room and everything home runs back to a closet upstairs.
The unfortunate thing is that my easy choices for cable modem and router placement are a bit limited. None really put the router in a central spot to cover the whole house.
so I installed a couple netgear wifi access points.
They work ok, and are more or less seamless.... I do get a bit of a hiccup occasionally when moving from one area to another, but mostly that's not really an issue. I have always questioned though if I really have them optimized as good as they could be.... just intuitively seems like the overlap areas could be bad

 

[deonb]

You know what... I want to see a YouTube Channel with you and @Ted DuPuis overdoing all the things worth doing.

You should have seen the look on my Electrician's face when I asked him to run 2 x 240V/50A cables to the outside front of my house for the sole purpose of running my Christmas Lights...

He actually refused to do it until I proved to him that my power supplies can run on 240V .

I used to own a business, and as it was a small business (maxed at 4 employees) I was very hands-on. One of the services we provided was running low-voltage cables as part of larger systems we were installing (some audio, mostly networking). We always quoted $2.50/foot for open walls and $4.50/foot for closed walls. And that was 20 years ago. I'm pretty sure we were undercharging.

That seems high, I had a singular cable done last year. 50 ft CAT6A solid cable & RJ45 was $20. Install was 90 minutes at $125/hour via the attic. He terminated it with RJ45 on the ceiling (AP then fits over it), I terminated it on the patch panel side. So just over $200 for a 50ft Ethernet cable installed. Obviously running multiple cables at the same time is cheaper.

I suppose high quality speaker cable in itself is far more expensive than CAT6A though.

 

[flyingron]

You should have seen the look on my Electrician's face when I asked him to run 2 x 240V/50A cables to the outside front of my house for the sole purpose of running my Christmas Lights...

So it didn't look like this?

 

[weilke]

ok, so in reader's digest layman's terms
how is this mesh / UniFi stuff different than a wifi router and hardwired access points?

My house was wired with cat5 to almost every room and everything home runs back to a closet upstairs.
The unfortunate thing is that my easy choices for cable modem and router placement are a bit limited. None really put the router in a central spot to cover the whole house.
so I installed a couple netgear wifi access points.
They work ok, and are more or less seamless.... I do get a bit of a hiccup occasionally when moving from one area to another, but mostly that's not really an issue. I have always questioned though if I really have them optimized as good as they could be.... just intuitively seems like the overlap areas could be bad

Run one cat6 from the demarc (where the ISP puts their box) to the closet and install a switch there. Connect the switch to all the rooms in the patch panel with short patch cords.

Mesh basically uses one wifi channel to talk among the APs which then broadcast the signal to all the devices on a different channel. If a device moves around it gets handed from mesh point to mesh point in the background. All the APs and the router talk to each other (about you).

With your infrastructure there is no need to go mesh. You can use your cat5 tree to put hardwired APs in different rooms. If you use a PoE switch in the closet, you don't need power for the individual APs. They get powered via the switch.

 

[deonb]

So it didn't look like this?

Haha. More like this. Well... when it started. There's a bit more stuff in there now. Keep in mind, this is not my main rack. This is just my Christmas Light rack...

I'll take a picture of my main rack one day when it doesn't like like there was an explosion going off in a cable factory anymore.