Large Home - WiFi Solutions for 2021

[Z-man]

Originally Posted by beepbeep

FYI, no network engineer would ever use mesh professionally. It is a purely a consumer solution that gives illusion that "everything works" as coverage improves.

Basically, user sees more bars in the phone and as long as Facebook and Youtube loads and there are no cables he is happy.

For few users this is acceptable but bandwidth gets lower as mesh network is forced to do more hops. Some products have dedicated backhaul channels, some do not.

But you will never find any mesh or 2.4GHz in pro setting. It is all cabled, channel-planned and supports multiple users running full tilt.

What's wrong with everything working, and coverage improving? Yes, there is the cost of hops as you add nodes, but two well placed nodes in a 3000 sq home helps decrease wifi dead zones, and doesn't add too much overhead to the network.

I upgraded to a two node wifi 6 mesh network, (from an AC2400 + range extender) and have seen a significant improvement overall: both in speed and decreased wifi dead zones. I have 30 devices connecting to the network at any given time.

I kind of like the everything works solutions... I also work in IT - on the Storage side (SAN networks - managing CICSO 9706's & 9513's) - I'd rather spend my time fixing performance issues there vs. trying to build up something on my own at home...

But what do I know, I mean I use an iPhone because it "just works..."
-Z

[1990C4S]

^^ I'm with Z-Man. For me, the google mesh network solved a lot of problems in a very big house, with six users, and a lot of devices. Fifteen minutes of set-up and I've had zero issues.

[jyl]

For a house only, I think mesh is fine. My house is 3K sf plus 1K sf basement, and an eero mesh system with 4 nodes covers all four levels plus my miniscule “yard”. But the OP has a really large property and relies on WiFi calling ‘cuz his cell signal is bad, he needs to cover to the end of a 400’ driveway and everywhere else on what I’m guessing is a 140K sf lot! The eero units are designed for a regular house, eero units can’t be over 50’ apart, using mesh there would mean dozens of hops.

[93097004xx]

I have a 4000 sq ft victorian built in 1895 with miles of plaster walls.. The only thing I know more intimately than vintage aircooled turbo porsches are plaster walls.. The only thing I have spent more hours cursing and shouting expletives at than porsche projects are plaster walls..

I’ve spent untold hours cursing these seemly endless projects that often stretch into the early morning hours..

I believe that if you have home larger than 3000 sq ft and built with either plaster and lath or brick walls it will require two routers.

Ahh.. plaster walls.









Next project in waiting..




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[daepp]

You ALL sound very knowledgeable - thank you for your replies!

Originally Posted by HardDrive

Cell service is something to take up with your provider.

Unfortunately there's no getting past city hall - they won't allow new (or even upgraded) cell building permits due to noisy citizens claiming EMF is hurting them. No lie.


Lots of options with for wifi. For our daily work, we no longer use wifi. Power line adaptors that go directly into the router. No wifi involved. Works for us.

When you say "power line adapters" do you mean PoE devices like the ones I mentioned above, or is that something else entirely? And when you say "no wifi involved" do you mean for computer use? Because we need wifi just to take a cell call.

[daepp]

Originally Posted by 93097004xx

I have a 4000 sq ft victorian built in 1895 with miles of plaster walls.. The only thing I know more intimately than vintage aircooled turbo porsches are plaster walls.. The only thing I have spent more hours cursing and shouting expletives at than porsche projects are plaster walls..

I’ve spent untold hours cursing these seemly endless projects that often stretch into the early morning hours..

I believe that if you have home larger than 3000 sq ft and built with either plaster and lath or brick walls it will require two routers.

Ahh.. plaster walls.

Oh man, I feel your pain! Our house is 3700 sq ft Spanish Colonial Revival built in 1990 - so it's not old per se. But it was a meticulous copy of a 1910 Montecito home - using the original plans no less. So the walls are often 14" thick (but with a modern twist - they're just double-framed 2X4's walls with insulation in the voids), and they also aren't "real" plaster - just a kind of wall board with a couple of plaster "skim coats". Regardless, it makes WiFi challenging, but I'm guessing not as tough as you've got it. And we hae a raised foundation so that helps a lot.

Beautiful home by the way!!

[daepp]

BTW, I'm still looking for a device that will help extend my micro cell down a long driveway. Is there a certain ind of antenna to use? And what specs would I look for that would tell me it's uses a long narrow "signal" vs. a wide angle?

Again, thanks for all the help!

[Gus Berges]

my apologies for resurrecting this thread, but I was wondering if anyone has any insight as to how to best deal with wifi coverage (5G) for a ±4,700 sq. foot condo/apartment that is built with post-tensioned concrete decks and reinforced concrete walls (it's a 50 story high building). I know/understand that ideally it would be all CAT5 cable to each access point, but unfortunately that would require work that I'm not ready to accept/do, so "mesh" is all I can do. I also cannot install whatever I buy on the ceiling. Main AP will be on the top of a large bookshelf/TV entertainment center, the others spread around the house near a wall outlet.

Will one Ubiquity Access Point WiFi 6 Long Range as main AP and a second as a repeater do the job? I cannot emphasize how much of a challenge these concrete walls are. Right now I have one Apple Extreme as main AP, and then 2 other Extreme and 2 Express as repeaters, but truth be told, speeds go from 250mbps at main AP to 20mbps at my home office. I need faster speed in my home office.

[Aurel]

Originally Posted by Gus Berges

my apologies for resurrecting this thread, but I was wondering if anyone has any insight as to how to best deal with wifi coverage (5G) for a ±4,700 sq. foot condo/apartment that is built with post-tensioned concrete decks and reinforced concrete walls (it's a 50 story high building). I know/understand that ideally it would be all CAT5 cable to each access point, but unfortunately that would require work that I'm not ready to accept/do, so "mesh" is all I can do. I also cannot install whatever I buy on the ceiling. Main AP will be on the top of a large bookshelf/TV entertainment center, the others spread around the house near a wall outlet.

Will one Ubiquity Access Point WiFi 6 Long Range as main AP and a second as a repeater do the job? I cannot emphasize how much of a challenge these concrete walls are. Right now I have one Apple Extreme as main AP, and then 2 other Extreme and 2 Express as repeaters, but truth be told, speeds go from 250mbps at main AP to 20mbps at my home office. I need faster speed in my home office.

If you have coaxial cables through your house, and get your internet main feed via a coaxial cable, you can use them to wire additional Wi-Fi access points. I did that for my basement and it was much better than those Wi-Fi repeaters. I purchased an Actiontec WCB3000N to do that job.
$16.90 on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FKTMWDE/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_1RJ0DKJM2JNYNG5QC3P8

[beepbeep]

Originally Posted by Z-man

What's wrong with everything working, and coverage improving? Yes, there is the cost of hops as you add nodes, but two well placed nodes in a 3000 sq home helps decrease wifi dead zones, and doesn't add too much overhead to the network.

I upgraded to a two node wifi 6 mesh network, (from an AC2400 + range extender) and have seen a significant improvement overall: both in speed and decreased wifi dead zones. I have 30 devices connecting to the network at any given time.

I kind of like the everything works solutions... I also work in IT - on the Storage side (SAN networks - managing CICSO 9706's & 9513's) - I'd rather spend my time fixing performance issues there vs. trying to build up something on my own at home...

But what do I know, I mean I use an iPhone because it "just works..."
-Z

There is nothing wrong with mesh as long as it works good enough to support usage scenario. And you do not need to run cables to each AP which is a plus.

But our kids love to stream and I mainly work from home so I took my time to do it "right". (it was not expensive but took time). So now I have multiple cabled AP's (essentially cheap consumer routers flashed with OpenWRT, fed by PoE and acting as dumb AP's) running on 5GHz only and supporting WiFi roaming.
I can run iperf3 on a iphone, walk around the house and see true data transfer speed bounce around 500Mbit and 200Mbit...on plain vanilla 802.11ac...

It has been bliss for last 5 years. It will probably take 5 more before technology has marched forward to force me to upgrade.